BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Auditors say Louisiana’s health department paid nearly $1 million in Medicaid fees for people who no longer live in the state and weren’t eligible for health services through the program.
The Legislative Auditor’s Office found that $943,000 in monthly fees were improperly paid from February 2012 through May 2016 for 160 people who had moved away from Louisiana.
Based on auditors’ sampling, the report released Monday suggests another $1.5 million could have been paid in error.
The fees were paid to private managed-care companies who administer health plans for most of Louisiana’s Medicaid recipients. Louisiana pays a per member, per month fee to the insurance companies for each Medicaid patient enrolled with them.
Louisiana’s Department of Health says it continues to work on improvements to its tracking of Medicaid enrollees.
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