Minnesota's Medicaid director has asked federal officials to explain, by Oct. 15, how they identified 870 Minnesota Medicaid providers as high risk for fraud or aberrant billing. The request came in an Oct. 2 letter from the state Department of Human Services to Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The answer matters for the more than 1.2 million Minnesotans who rely on Medicaid and the providers who serve them. Federal officials have now frozen about $550 million in payments to the state through three quarterly deferrals, and the state warns that the uncertainty could disrupt legitimate care.
