Enrolling the dead depletes Medicaid
An auditor's report concluded that Illinois Medicaid overpaid $12.3 million for 2,850 deceased people, the Associated Press reported, with 561 enrolled an average of 663 days after they died. The state paid total premiums of about 7 million dollars for these dearly-though-not-nearly departed, with most payments going to private insurers. In one case, Medicaid shelled out almost $30,000 for 816 dental, lab and hospital services billed from 2005 to 2013 on behalf of someone who died in 1989. Auditor General William Holland called this "a glaring deficiency" in an interview with the AP. The state Medicaid agency referred these cases to fraud investigators. Meanwhile, officials are faulting a passive enrollment system that doesn't compare Medicaid files with state death records before assigning patients to managed care plans. Article
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