Maryland prison inmates were allowed access to the Social Security numbers and other personal information of participants in the state’s Medicaid program, a new state audit reveals. Participants in Maryland Correctional Enterprises, a program that provides eligible inmates with work experience or rehabilitation, were tasked with entering into a Department of Health and Mental Hygiene database health insurance claims submitted by doctors under the state’s Medicaid program.
The Medical Care Program Administration of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene relied primarily on prisoners to input roughly 900,000 paper Medicaid claims, totaling $265 million, over the course of 11 months, a 2010 audit of the agency found. For its speedy data entry process, the state received $750 million in federal stimulus funding in fiscal 2010. In the same year, the agency spent about $6.8 billion on 881,000 Maryland residents.
