Dentists Charged Taxpayers $175M For Unneeded Work On Kids
Ethan Barton
May 18, 2015
Nearly 500 dentists in four states billed Medicaid almost $175 million for potentially fake, unneeded or shoddy work on kids in 2012, a government watchdog reported Monday.
Investigators most recently caught 335 California dentists who sent $117.5 million of questionable bills to Medicaid, the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general reported. The watchdog caught another 151 dentists in New York, Louisiana and Indiana over the last year, who billed Medicaid $56.1 million in 2012.
“In recent years, a number of dental providers and chains have been prosecuted for providing unnecessary dental procedures to children with Medicaid and causing harm in the process,” the report said. “A concentration of providers with questionable billing in chains raises concerns that these chains may be encouraging their providers to perform unnecessary procedures to increase profits.
The 335 providers, which make up 8 percent of all California dentists, served more than one-third of all the Medicaid children investigators reviewed.
