ALBANY — The dead continued to live on state Medicaid rolls, costing taxpayers millions of dollars last year, a new audit out Tuesday revealed.
State Controller Thomas DiNapoli’s audit criticized the Health Department for doling out $2.3 million in Medicaid payments for 1,296 patients who had already died.
The payments to the dead were among $12.1 million in inappropriate Medicaid payments identified by DiNapoli’s auditors that were made during a six-month period that ended Sept. 30.
“My auditors continue to find glitches in the Department of Health’s payment control systems that allow wasteful payments to be made,” DiNapoli said.
Health Department officials, in their response to the audit, said they were working to recover the money. About $2.1 million has already been returned to the state.
The inappropriate payments included more than $7.1 million paid to long-term care providers for patients who had already been deemed ineligible for Medicaid and removed from the program.
Another $1 million came from overpayments for patients who had other health insurance coverage.
Auditors also found that 31 health care providers in the Medicaid system had been charged with or had already been convicted of crimes that should have terminated their involvement.
State officials have since removed 26 of the providers from the program and are reviewing five others.
