After WFAA investigation, company settles with State of Texas for record $235.9 million

Xerox Corporation and its former subsidiary, Conduent, agreed Tuesday to a record $235.9 million settlement with the State of Texas, according to the Texas Attorney General's Office. 
It was the largest single Medicaid fraud-related settlement in a case filed by the Texas Attorney General.

The settlement comes after a three-year WFAA investigation that uncovered millions of dollars in alleged overbilling by Texas dentists targeting low-income children for unnecessary and often harmful dental and orthodontic work.

Read entire story at WFAA website

Related:

 WFAA's Byron Harris reports 

ACS Xerox Answers Complaint filed by State of Texas

 

Xerox's Original Answer to Texas Complaint

 

Texas v. ACS Xerox - Xerox's Original Answer to Pleas in Intervention

 

Link to other Pleading in the case, including the original Complaint

Faulted in Medicaid Fraud, Company Keeps Contract

Faulted in Medicaid Fraud, Company Keeps Contract

For nearly five years, a state contractor allowed workers with limited expertise to approve dental claims for Texas’ Medicaid program, the joint state-federal insurer. State spending on orthodontic services spiraled out of control; by 2012, federal and state auditors found that the contractor’s actions had opened the door for a “massive Medicaid fraud scheme” that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

More than two years later, Texas health officials have reeled in spending on Medicaid orthodontic services and pursued legal action against health care providers who billed for the services. But a Texas Tribune investigation found that while health officials have repeatedly raised concerns with the contractor, a Xerox subsidiary called the Texas Medicaid and Healthcare Partnership, they have not severed its multiyear contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Critics accuse the state of dragging its feet because of the contractor’s political ties to Gov. Rick Perry, a claim the governor’s office says is not true.

Continue reading at New York Times…

Read Texas Tribune Article Here - Company That OK's Unnecessary Braces Kept Its Contract

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Related:

“Ho” Down in Texas – James W. Orr, DDS Testifies for Antoine Dental Center

Xerox owned company contributing to dental Medicaid fraud; Fraud from the dental office to the billing processor exposed

It’s apparent to me that neither private companies or government operated health care can operate and deliver healthcare to American’s for a fair price, since theft of taxpayer dollars is part of the business plan.  I’ve said all along that people who think Obama Care will solve the problems are so wrong.  Some seem to think the government will actually operate it—which somehow would be better.  But that simply isn’t the case folks.  The government will hand out contracts to greedy corporations to oversee and operate.  The same corporations who donate and lobby our lawmakers.  All I can see Obama care doing is giving the government the ability to add their favored companies to the free-for-all raiding of the taxpayer money pot. 
 
 
Byron Harris
November 11, 2011

DALLAS - Claims procedures discovered in a News 8 investigation of "Your tax dollars aren't working," said a former claims specialist, one of several News 8 has interviewed. "You're paying for [dental] services that shouldn't be paid for."the Texas Medicaid Dental program may apply to the whole country, because of the payment process employed by a major government contractor.
In a series of investigative reports over the last several months, News 8 discovered hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid billing for orthodontics. Now it appears the problems, which have triggered a federal audit, may be linked as much to the way the claims are approved, as they are to the individual dentists involved.
It turns out that the claims examiners are paid by quantity, and not
Employees who might have been making $20 per claim two years ago, now are making $10 per claim. To take home the same pay, they have to push nearly twice as many claims through the system.

"People didn't know how they were going to make their mortgage payment, their car payment, pay their babysitter because every time they turned around, their pay was being reduced again because corporate felt they were making too much money," a former employee said. necessarily quality, under a program called Activity Based Compensation, or ABC. The more claims they process, the more money they make, creating a strong incentive not to take too much time with each one.
"Your tax dollars aren't working," said a former claims specialist, one of several News 8 has interviewed. "You're paying for [dental] services that shouldn't be paid for."