NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department accused New York state officials Tuesday of facilitating fraud, saying they let a Georgia company use a sham bidding process to gain control of and then abuse a $10 billion program to provide home care to disabled Medicaid patients.Federal lawyers made the claims in a civil lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court, naming the state’s Department of Health, its Medicaid director and the Alpharetta, Georgia-based company Public Partnerships LLC, as defendants. In the lawsuit, the federal government asked a judge to order the end to any wrongdoing and to appoint a receiver to run the company. The lawsuit came two months after President Donald Trump’s administration acknowledged it made a significant error in facts to help justify its fraud probe into New York’s Medicaid program, undercutting a federal campaign to tackle waste, mostly in Democratic-led states.
In a statement, Public Partnerships said: “We strongly disagree with the characterizations in the complaint and will respond fully through the appropriate legal process.”The company added that it was selected “through a transparent, competitive process to strengthen and modernize” New York’s program and to serve more than 250,000 New Yorkers who rely on home care and the hundreds of thousands of caregivers who provide the care.
