Scandal Tracker 2024: autism clinic addition
We are officially adding another item to our Scandal Tracker 2024 list. This latest scandal involves the state’s private autism clinics, which are not licensed by the state, but receive payments through the Medicaid program.
The state program distributes around $200 million a year to some 330 providers working with autism patients. We do not yet have a dollar amount to associate with the autism clinic fraud.
Over the past days and weeks, numerous outlets have reported (MN Reformer, Star Tribune) on separate investigations underway by the state Department of Human Services (DHS) and the FBI. It’s reported that DHS alone has investigated 25 autism service providers.
The autism clinic scandal becomes the 11th Medicaid-related item on our list, that already included some $48 million in Medicaid fraud losses. Before the Feeding Our Future scandal, $48 million would have stood out as a shocking number.
Most of the Medicaid-related fraud is being investigated by a dedicated division within the state Attorney General’s office.
A former investigator in the AG’s fraud division published an interesting opinion piece today on MN Reformer’s website. Kayseh Magan writes under the headline,
A Somali-American former investigator: why you’re hearing about fraud in my community
It’s a must-read for anyone interested in this topic. About the nature of these frauds, Magan makes an important, if sometimes overlooked, point,
The systems intended to catch fraud are mostly designed to root out recipient fraud. It is exceedingly difficult to guard against providers who collude with recipients, which is the type of fraud most pervasive in the Somali community.
If Magan’s name sounds familiar, he took on incumbent Minneapolis city council member (Ward 6) Jamal Osman in last year’s election, finishing second to Osman in a four-way race decided by ranked-choice voting.
In today’s piece, Magan mentions the most recently filed Medicaid fraud case, involving $9 million and the indictment of three individuals. The fraud involves some dozen or so businesses in the home health care industry, most of which are located in the Holland neighborhood of northeast Minneapolis.
Your correspondent visited three locations this past weekend. Please note that the business signs depicted below do not involve any entities mentioned in the AG’s case.
On Central Avenue:
On Lowry Avenue:
The lead defendant in that case is scheduled to make his first court appearance tomorrow in state court in Minneapolis. His two alleged co-conspirators are scheduled for initial court appearances next month.