Minnesota State Wire

A new report from the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) and Minnesota Department of IT (MDIT) shows that the DHS overpaid as much as $28.9 million to managed care organizations between fiscal year 2017 and 2019 as part of the state’s Medicaid program.

Estimates from MDIT range from $12 million to $28 million in improper spending over three years.

The overpayments could be attributed to mistakes rather than intentional fraud, according to reporting by The Center Square. There are over 47,000 duplicate accounts for Minnesotans, which could have been created through mistakes such as typos, incomplete records or someone mistakenly creating a new record when one already exists.

“While about 3% of enrollees have had multiple IDs, only a small number of those – less than a quarter of 1% – have IDs that overlap in a service period, which can cause service problems or duplicate payments,” said DHS deputy assistant commissioner Julie Marquardt in a statement. “Proportionately, these cases have a very small fiscal impact – at most, less than one tenth of 1% of Medicaid payments over the three years studied in the report.”

Marquardt  said every dollar matters regardless.

“DHS and Minnesota IT Services continue working to correct the multiple IDs issue as quickly as possible, while also creating long-term solutions,” she said.

DHS will work to recover the overpayments from health plans and providers, then repay the funds to the federal government, she said.

In addition to overpayments, the DHS report noted that the duplicate accounts could cause problems with service disruptions and labor costs.

The report and response is part of ongoing efforts to fix issues the state government has known about for two years, said state Sen. Michelle Benson.

“We required the reporting to make clear to DHS that fraud must be taken seriously, and the risk of fraud when you have this kind of lackadaisical approach to tracking is high,” Benson said. “It's also a lot of money at a time when we're looking for money for school safety, disaster relief and paying back tribes and the federal government for [Medicaid] overpayments in other areas.”