CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz: “Today, we have three major announcements from the health care part of this fraud endeavor.”
1. “The state of Ohio will be announcing that they are suspending 49 home health care providers who have been identified as high risk to the Medicaid program… Ohio Governor DeWine also sought a six-month moratorium for all new home health care and hospice in the state of Ohio.”
2. “CMS and Ohio are going to launch a state-specific Medicaid fraud room. It’s going to copy the Medicaid fraud room created at the federal level by the task force… ABA therapy has been scandalously abused… The top provider earned over $3 million. That’s twice the closest competitor… The average provider of autism services gets paid around $200,000… And the war room that’s created with Ohio will be opening investigations on two home health care providers..”
3. “We have the need to audit states all over the country to help states understand where they are in comparison to all the other states. We don’t have a national effort that allows states to at least get a best practices idea from surrounding areas. We have asked the state of Indiana to work with Oracle Health to provide that exact set of information. So all the states now will be armed with information, for example, on high-risk providers and the ABA therapy autism. We’ve asked all 50 states to revalidate these providers and other high-risk categories. Every single state has agreed by this Friday, they’re obliged to provide us with a specific plan.”
