The Justice Department announced criminal charges against 15 people in a series of Minnesota Medicaid fraud schemes that prosecutors say cost taxpayers $90 million, according to CBS News.
The indictments cover seven Medicaid programs administered by Minnesota. According to Colin McDonald, the assistant attorney general overseeing the national fraud enforcement division, a common thread runs through the allegations: defendants submitted claims for services they never rendered and funneled the resulting payments into luxury goods, vehicles, and property, according to CBS News.
One of the charged schemes involved a disability program intended to support independent living. McDonald described a case in which a participant died after receiving nothing from a provider who had billed the state for continuous care, according to CBS News. Charges in a second scheme allege that two defendants exploited an autism services program by offering payments to families whose children received autism diagnoses, irrespective of clinical necessity, and then submitting fraudulent Medicaid billing for services those children never received, according to CBS News.
The Housing Stabilization Services program, a resource for seniors and people with disabilities that collapsed last year when its money ran out, is at the center of allegations against eight of the defendants. Among those eight, three live in Pennsylvania, according to CBS News.
