TCCRI Board Members Send Medicaid Fraud Letter
This letter, signed by ten TCCRI Board Members, urges Commissioner Suehs and Inspector General Wilson of the Texas Health & Human Services Commission to continue their efforts to combat waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid.
The full text of the letter is below; you can also view a PDF version of the letter.
May 25, 2012
Mr. Tom Suehs
Executive Commissioner
Texas Health and Human Services Commission
Brown-Heatly Building
4900 N. Lamar Blvd.
Austin, Texas 78751
Mr. Doug Wilson
Inspector General
Texas Health and Human Services Commission
11101 Metric Blvd., Building I
Austin, Texas 78758
Dear Commissioner Suehs and Inspector General Wilson:
We strongly urge the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) to continue its efforts to curb abuses in Medicaid and other taxpayer-funded programs and to make state health care delivery more cost-effective and efficient.
As you know, the 82rd Texas Legislature enacted Medicaid reforms estimated to save our taxpayers $1.2 billion during the next two years. These initiatives included extending managed care to the Rio Grande Valley; expanding acute managed care to rural areas of the state; carving prescription drug and inpatient hospital benefits into managed care; and moving Medicaid dental benefits to a managed care model. The savings associated with the managed care expansion underscore that managed care is a critical tool through which the state can reduce unnecessary and fraudulent health care expenditures.
However, even with these reforms in place, there is much work still to be done. According to a recent Houston Chronicle news article, “Millions of public dollars have been spent for the transportation of poor and unaccompanied children, some as young as 3, to rehabilitation clinics in the Rio Grande Valley even though the rides have been illegal for years.”
We appreciate that Mr. Wilson’s office is investigating this situation. We understand that Texas Medicaid fraud recoveries have reached $750 million since 2002, and it is critical that we keep preventing, investigating, and prosecuting all forms of Medicaid fraud.
The TCCRI State Budget Task Force will continue to study the issues surrounding Medicaid fraud and is in the process of developing legislative recommendations based in part on the information and ideas that you both presented to the Task Force. Your participation in our State Budget Task Force is much appreciated: we rely on the insight of state agency leadership in order to understand the problems facing our state and to develop solutions that will be effective. We hope that you will stay engaged in the Task Force so that we can have a positive effect on the state’s efforts to combat Medicaid fraud. In turn, please work with us in any ways that you feel would be effective as we work toward the shared goal of reducing Medicaid fraud.
Medicaid fraud preys on the taxpayers who foot the bill for a program that is intended to serve the indigent. It is therefore critical that HHSC and other state agencies continue to engage aggressively in efforts to detect, stop and prosecute health care fraud in Texas.
Thank you for your leadership and service.
Sincerely,
State Representative Linda Harper-Brown
State Senator Robert Nichols
State Representative Bill Callegari
State Representative Tom Craddick
State Representative Myra Crownover
State Senator Dan Patrick
State Representative Kelly Hancock
State Representative Phil King
State Representative John Otto
State Representative Larry Taylor
