The Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Office releases a report that finds Medicaid paid nearly $10 million to healthcare organizations for 1,072 beneficiaries who were deceased. The report covers February 2019 to March of this year, and the review was conducted to further the goals of the Governor’s Fiscal Responsibility Program. State auditor Chris Magee on how they found out these beneficiaries were dead.
“We identified 511 of these beneficiaries through obituaries, 210 through LDH vital records data, 168 through the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File,” Magee said.
Magee says they have recommended to the Louisiana Department of Health to use third-party data sources in their effort to make sure beneficiaries of Medicaid have not passed away.
“Such as obituaries, the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File, and other states’ vital records databases,” Magee said.
Magee says LDH has accepted their recommendation on how to improve its process in identifying and removing Medicaid coverage for beneficiaries who are deceased.
“As part of its response, which is included in the report as appendix A, LDH agreed with our recommendation,” Magee noted.
