EXCLUSIVE — The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will testify before Congress this month on what steps the agency is taking to actively address healthcare fraud across the country, following massive abuse of federally funded safety net programs in Minnesota, California, and Arizona.
At the hearing, scheduled for March 17, members of the Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hear directly from CMS about the efforts the Trump administration is spearheading to tackle Medicare and Medicaid fraud proactively.
Reps. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), chairman of the committee, and John Joyce (R-PA), chairman of the subcommittee, told the Washington Examiner that the hearing builds on the committee’s previous fraud prevention work.
Committee leaders in January wrote to Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Shireen Gandhi, the now-permanent commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, requesting records and communications showing the scale of Medicaid fraud within the state’s social services agency.
HOW MINNESOTA’S SOMALI FRAUD INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX HAS STOLEN MILLIONS FROM MEDICAID
In early February, committee members held a hearing where industry experts identified common healthcare fraud schemes and discussed programs that are particularly vulnerable to abuse.
The congressional committee has since expanded its investigation into Medicaid fraud, sending letters to 10 additional states across the country to see whether local officials are sufficiently safeguarding state-administered Medicaid systems against fraud.
States that were issued a letter, namely California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Maine, Nebraska, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington, have produced concerning cases of Medicaid fraud over the past several years.
The committee’s latest series of letters demanded information and documents on the actions each state is taking to strengthen program integrity following reports of sprawling Medicaid scams costing the program billions of dollars annually.
Fraud watchdogs say that such schemes drain federal resources and contribute significantly to rising healthcare costs, all at the expense of American taxpayers and vulnerable beneficiaries.
HEALTHCARE FRAUD HAS PROLIFERATED NATIONWIDE, HOUSE REPUBLICANS WARN
Next week’s hearing, which will examine the role of CMS in combating Medicare and Medicaid fraud, is centered on protecting patients and taxpayer dollars from criminal actors.
“This hearing will continue our work to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid,” Guthrie and Joyce said in a joint statement exclusively shared with the Washington Examiner. “We look forward to hearing from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services about its efforts toward that shared goal.”
