New York, the state that spends the most on Medicaid--$44.5 billion--is proposing to create a new agency to uncover Medicaid fraud, according to a New York Times article. Claiming that it is a conflict of interest for the state department of health to have oversight over its own Medicaid program, New York governor George Pataki will ask the state legislature to approve a $15 million budget for the new antifraud agency, which is to be headed by the Medicaid inspector general and will hire medical professionals to help investigators spot questionable medical bills. New York’s health department found only 37 cases of suspected Medicaid fraud in 2004, a fraction of the fraud cases prosecuted in other large states.
