by Ben Vernia | April 13th, 2011
On March 31, the Office of Inspector General of HHS published a report detailing its findings after reviewing Medicaid payments (either capitated or fee-for-service) for deceased beneficiaries. The bottom line was approximately $24,000 in such costs, with another $105,000 spent for 18 recipients whose “death status” could not be determined. The report recommended that the state agency work with their vital records department to expand the kinds of information shared to include known deaths in other states, and expand manual reviews of Social Security number or date of birth discrepancies, which caused some of the problematic payments. New Mexico agreed with the recommendations.
