Even The People’s Republic of California has to face reality sometimes. As in, how to pay for all the benefits they’re giving to their welcome guests that less enlightened people call “illegal immigrants.” One way they’ve done it is by using wrong methods to claim Medicaid payments.
Maybe deliberate, maybe just convoluted bureaucratic operating, but a recent by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General showed California used wrong methodology in accounting for nearly $53 million in Medicaid benefits for – as the audit put it – “noncitizens with unsatisfactory immigration status.” The federal government does not allow Medicaid reimbursements to the for treatment of , except emergency services to legally-admitted non-citizens and certain refugees. Even then, in some cases a five-year waiting period is in effect.
California, according to the audit, filed reimbursement for nonemergency treatment of those UIS people. That money should have come from the state’s funds, the report said. Join me in the weeds for a bit as we look at a portion of the audit report: “Of the $372.
9 million in total Federal Medicaid reimbursement for capitation (reimbursement) payments made on behalf of noncitizens with UIS, California did not claim $52.7 million in accordance with Federal requirements.” “California improperly claimed $52.
7 million in Federal Medicaid reimbursement because it continued to use the proxy percentage that was develope.
