The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General has issued a report on some of the "general compliance" issues within the State of South Dakota's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.
Aww.
The HHS OIG said, "Bad South Dakota MFCU, bad."
They even went so far as to generate a podcast on the great things it is doing for the poor lil' Indians in South Dakota but here is my issue:
Daniel Levinson has got to go.
Yes, Levinson, the Inspector General of the DHHS has been at the helm for quite some time, and, for quite some time, Medicaid Fraud in Child Welfare has been utterly ignored, intentionally omitted from the political conversation for years.
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| HHS OIG Danny Levinson contemplating the quagmire of Medicaid Fraud in Child Welfare |
One reason why there is no public discussion of Medicaid Fraud in Child Welfare is because the States Attorneys General contemporaneously "advise and advocate" for its contractual fraudfeasors.
That is correct. How can a State Attorney General prosecute what it defends?
Then there is the nasty issue of these MFCUs not being designed to even address child welfare fraud.
See, the original legislation, stemming from Walter Mondale's actions to protect the aging population from fraud within the Social Security programs excluded the children.
Child Abuse Prevention Treatment Act (CAPTA) came around and everyone thought it was the greatest invention since sliced bread as it established funding for economically struggling cities to create educational and employment opportunities for those historically excluded, for the purposes of "assimilating children of the poors".
No one would ever consider that there would be fraud in a child welfare program. Nope, because most of this work was done in the name of God, non-profits, and everyone knows.... say it together with me...
"YOU CANNOT AUDIT GOD"
Then came the horrific Adoption Safe Families Act which set an expedited timeline to allowed fraudulent billing under Targeted Case Management, a Medicaid program, and also provided for, what I like to call the "shredding of the bills" through termination of parental rights.
As long as these States are without policies to refer child welfare fraud to the MFCU for prosecution and recovery, there will always be a few of those pesky "general compliance" issues found.
Do not even let me get started on advocating for the use of aggregate data to generate predictive models of abuse and neglect or the blatant refusal to even touch contract compliance and fraud within the Administration of Children and Families!
Just take a look, below, at the recently upheld decision on improper removals of Sioux children in South Dakota. If this is not a working example of the lackadaisical stewardship of Daniel Levinson, I do not know what is.
Hey, Danny, time to retire!
You suck.
Feds fault state for Medicaid fraud efforts
A federal report on Wednesday criticized South Dakota’s commitment to fighting Medicaid fraud, finding the state is understaffed in a key area for rooting out fraud and abuse.
The report from the United States Health and Human Service’s Office of Inspector General was ostensibly a review of the state’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, or MFCU, within the attorney general’s office. Nationally, MFCUs are responsible for prosecuting Medicaid fraud cases, levying civil fines or prosecuting abuse and neglect cases.
Medicaid is a taxpayer funded health program for the poor.
The federal review found that the state’s MFCU was in “general compliance” with federal requirements. But it also found that the fraud unit was receiving few referrals of potential cases from the Department of Social Services, which administers Medicaid.
Each time a kid is snatched from the family for the crime of poverty, another state child welfare contractual arm cashes a check drawn off Medicaid.
Whether the snatching is legitimate or not, does not matter, because the States Medicaid Fraud Control Units will never, ever, receive referrals of fraudulent billing in child welfare.
Aho.
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