A North Carolina official recently highlighted possible fraud within his state’s Medicaid program surrounding autism treatments.
State Auditor Dave Boliek said there was a suspicious 47,000 percent rise in autism therapy billings that officials are investigating, Fox News reported Saturday.
Boliek told Fox:
Those are vital services to folks and individuals that need that therapy. But when you have, like in North Carolina, a system that went from $1.4 million or so in total billings for autism therapy to more than $660 million a year in billings on autism therapy within a five-year range, that begs an audit from the state auditor, who in North Carolina, we are the top watchdog agency for taxpayer waste, fraud, and abuse prevention. So we’ve dug down into that or in the middle of that.
The news comes just after Breitbart News reported that Vice President JD Vance’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud continues working against the problem, which has hurt Americans across the nation.
A spokesperson for the vice president told Breitbart News he has “brought the entire Trump administration together to root out fraud and return hard-earned tax dollars to the American people – where it belongs. The task force continues to gain momentum every single day, and it’s working tirelessly to deliver results on the President’s War on Fraud.”
Indeed, Boliek said his office is working in step with Vance’s focus to stop the waste of money.
About 85 autism clinics in Minnesota were being investigated in July for tens of millions of dollars in Medicaid fraud, according to Breitbart News.
In March, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on Medicare and Medicaid fraud that was costing taxpayers billions every year, Breitbart News reported:
“Fraud is prevalent in all sectors of health care and is especially egregious in taxpayer-funded health care programs that are intended to serve vulnerable populations, including the elderly, disabled, children, and pregnant women,” the committee noted in announcing the hearing. “Every dollar stolen from federal health care programs is a dollar that is not spent on high quality health care for those that need it most.”
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday creating a federal task force to investigate benefits fraud, headed by Vice President JD Vance.
WFMY reported Wednesday that a treatment provider in Boliek’s state came to a settlement after a Medicaid fraud investigation.
“North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson announced a $584,143 settlement with Crossroads Treatment Center of Greensboro, following a joint investigation with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of North Carolina,” the article stated.
Boliek told Fox officials are working on strengthening fraud enforcement, adding, “Every wasted dollar is a dollar that can’t be spent on a person who actually needs service.”
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