An audit by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli found New York’s Medicaid program duplicated payments to the tune of $102.1 million over four years.
Auditors found that between 2014 and 2018, the state Department of Health made payments for managed-care premiums to 65,961 individuals with multiple client identification numbers.
The mix-up stemmed from missing or incorrect Social Security numbers and wrong addresses.
“System flaws and incorrect or incomplete information have caused duplicate Medicaid premium payments for a long time,” DiNapoli said. “The Department of Health needs to do a better job coordinating with all stakeholders in the Medicaid system to eliminate this waste, improve efficiency and streamline communication.”
DiNapoli also noted further complication thanks to the lack of a centralized system between New York City and upstate Welfare Management Systems and the New York State of Health system, established under ObamaCare.
DOH said it’s working to fix the mistakes. “The department recently allocated additional resources to duplicate research and resolution and created a unit for this purpose,” the agency said of the findings.
Bill Hammond, director of health policy for the Empire Center, was critical of the bungling.
“A little series of mistakes in a program this big can add up to a lot of money in a hurry,” Hammond told The Post. “A quarter of a million dollars is a lot of money. It’s important that the auditors are looking at this and are pointing to things that could be fixed.”
In fiscal year 2017-2018, the state’s Medicaid program had 7.3 million total recipients and $62.9 billion in total claim costs.
© 2019 New York Post
You may also like
The good, the bad and the ugly in Cuomo’s budget
“We are at the early stages of what shapes up as the biggest state and city fiscal crisis since the Great Depression,” said E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center. “Borrowing and short-term cuts aside, the budget doesn’t chart any clear path out of it.” Read More
Medicaid cuts make the state budget, with some tweaks
Bill Hammond, director of health policy at the conservative-leaning think tank the Empire Center, suggested this is because the proposed cuts are meant to slow the otherwise rapid growth in Medicaid spending, which means an increase is still possible. Read More
Editorial: Cuomo’s problematic Medicaid maneuvers
“It’s everything that’s wrong with Albany in one ugly deal,” Bill Hammond, a health policy expert at the fiscally conservative Empire Center, told The Times. Read More
Gov. Cuomo’s Lawsuit on Pres. Trump’s Tax Cuts Dismissed
But according to the Empire Center, a non-profit group based in Albany, the overall impact of the Trump tax cuts actually benefited most state residents. Read More
EDITORIAL: State schools continue spending more for less
As reported by the Empire Center last week, “The number of students enrolled in New York state public schools is the lowest recorded in 30 years.”
Since 2000, enrollment in public schools has declined by more than 10 percent statewide with most of it upstate as enrollment in New York City schools has increased 1.3 percent in the last 10 years. Students are not leaving to go to private or parochial schools either because they, too, are showing declines, down about 8 percent in the last decade. Read More
More New Yorkers covered by health insurance: report
An analysis by Bill Hammond of The Empire Center for Public Policy said the continued drop bolsters the case against the Albany Legislature passing a new law imposing a state government-run health insurance, which Democratic candidates for president are pushing for on a national level. Read More
What Cuomo’s executive order on vaping will and won’t do
“If you have these really young kids and teens getting hooked, then that’s not good," said Bill Hammond, director of health policy at the Empire Center for Public Policy. "But the first step would be to do some research, have a public hearing, get the best expert evidence that you have. Instead of reacting to headlines, find out what’s really going on and proceed with proposed regulations.” Read More
$1 billion semiconductor plant: ‘Flashy mega-project’ or ‘transformational investment’ for New York?
"The state is continuing its strategy of pursuing flashy mega-projects instead of making New York more attractive for all businesses. We're now in the second decade of this approach, and it's still failing to deliver the promised results," Girardin said. "This is the sort of economic development strategy that politicians turn to when they don't want to take on the tougher questions." Read More