A new legislative audit is highlighting some gaps in state oversight of healthcare kickbacks.
The Office of the Legislative Auditor revealing that a long-standing administrative error may have hindered the Department of Human Services from properly investigating kickback allegations within the state's autism program.
Auditors clarified that state law has technically allowed for such sanctions since all the way back in 1997.
"We believe, had DHS corrected the rule at any time since 1995, it would have had another avenue of clear authority to sanction providers who engage in kickbacks," notes Deputy Legislative Auditor Katherine Theisen.
The committee will now weigh legislative fixes to clarify these enforcement powers moving forward. The new audit comes amid an ongoing fraud investigation in various state and government-run programs.
Auditors say that the Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program’s annual costs grew from $38 million to nearly $325 million over the last four years.
This 750% spending increase coincided with claims from DHS that they didn't have the authority to properly investigating kickback allegations.
"But we disagreed," Deputy Legislative Auditor Katherine Theisen said. "We identified several ways DHS could have used existing authority to address allegations of kickbacks."
With these new findings, the legislature will now decide whether new provider licensing requirements and updated fraud definitions will be sufficient to prevent fraud in the future.
"We identified several ways DHS could have used existing authority to address allegations of kickbacks"
"We identified several ways DHS could have used existing authority to address allegations of kickbacks"
