January 25, 2013
Today’s Medicaid Fraud Recover story is from Missouri, where Attorney General Chris Koster has announced a $50M recovery by Missouri’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.
Of course crowing about the recovery and actually recovering the money are two completely different things. Personally, I read it as “We found $50M we were snookered out of and have they con artists an invoice.”
Of interest to me was this part of the statement:
- Comfort Dental (3 cases): Comfort Dental – a franchise dental chain based in Colorado with offices in the Kansas City area – billed Medicaid for services provided to individuals who were not eligible for Medicaid, resulting in a total loss to Medicaid of more than $17,000. Additionally, the Attorney General’s investigation revealed that each clinic double-billed services to Medicaid, resulting in a loss of more than $4,200, and also charged Medicaid recipients for services paid for by the program.
In three separate settlements, the entities paid $66,265.22 to resolve claims of both the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and the Consumer Protection Division. The Consumer Protection Division sent checks totaling $6,265.22 to those Missouri citizens who were improperly billed for Medicaid covered services.
I bet had the Missouri MFCU looked at Reachout Healthcare America’s mobile dental business operating in their state, they could have recouped another $50M.
I believe it was just last year, Kansas agreed to let Comfort set up shop in their state, some officials citing they had no choice because they had already let Small Smiles Dental Center’s inside their boarders.
It’s also about the time of year again; for the HHS-OIG to march over to Capitol Hill for their announcement of Medicaid dollars lost and found. I believe last year it was $4 billion and somehow they were proud of that.
