INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -
A federal agency found that the Indiana attorney general’s office didn’t
give proper notice in nearly a quarter of the Medicaid fraud cases it helped
prosecute in recent years.
A report from the
Department of Health and Human Services inspector general’s office found
state officials didn’t notify the agency within 30 days in about 25 of its
105 convictions between fiscal years 2010 and 2012. In 11 of those cases,
the federal government wasn’t notified at all, The Indianapolis Star
reported.
Overall, the
inspector general’s office said Indiana is performing well, but it cited six
criticisms, including a failure to document supervisor approval in about 77
percent of open cases and 18 percent of closed cases.
Matthew Whitmire,
director of Indiana’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, admitted state
investigators hadn’t met the 30-day notification requirement in some cases.
He said the delays were the result of Indiana’s prosecution system, which
forces the fraud office to go through county prosecutors, who sometimes
don’t update it on the status of cases.
“The lack of
prosecution power and reliance on 91 county prosecutors makes the 30-day
requirement unreasonable,” Whitmire wrote in a letter to the inspector
general’s office. But he said the agency will try to comply.
It is unclear
whether anyone convicted of fraud later received any federal payments.
Bryan Corbin,
spokesman for the state attorney general’s office, said investigators work
closely with the Family and Social Services Administration to ensure people
convicted of fraud are not paid federal funds. State officials also seek
restitution for any improper payments.
The fraud unit
recovered more than $110 million in civil and criminal convictions between
fiscal year 2010 and 2012, according to the report.
“We made some
findings, but nothing that would question their basic ability to investigate
fraud and patient abuse and neglect,” said Richard Stern, director of the
Medicaid Fraud Policy and Oversight Division in the inspector general’s
office.