Medicaid fraud fears grow amid massive red state billing spike in sector that also plagued Minnesota
As fraud concerns ramp up across the country, particularly involving Medicaid, North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek tells Fox News Digital that the problem is very real in his state,...
By Fox News · Fox News
As fraud concerns ramp up across the country, particularly involving Medicaid, North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek tells Fox News Digital that the problem is very real in his state, especially when it comes to autism therapy, an area that has been highly scrutinized in Minnesota. Boliek is sounding the alarm on potential waste, fraud, and abuse within the state’s Medicaid program, specifically calling out in an interview with Fox News Digital a 47,000% explosion in autism therapy billings that he has flagged since taking office last year. "Those are vital services to folks and individuals that need that therapy," Boliek said. "But when you have, like in North Carolina, a system that went from $1.4 million or so in total billings for autism therapy to more than $660 million a year in billings on autism therapy within a five-year range, that begs an audit from the state auditor, who in North Carolina, we are the top watchdog agency for taxpayer waste, fraud, and abuse prevention. So we've dug down into that or in the middle of that. " Boliek, who was speaking to Fox News Digital from the State Financial Officers Foundation annual conference in Orlando , says his office is "hand-in-hand" with Vice President JD Vance’s focus on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse to "make sure that the people who need the services and deserve those services get the services" without "wasting money." NORTH CAROLINA AUDITOR EXCITED FOR 'REAL EFFECT' OF STATE-LEVEL DOGE: 'KEEPING GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABLE' One of the core problems, Boliek explained, is that the system is oftentimes designed in a way that fails to properly safeguard against waste and abuse. "What we’ve got is we’ve seen examples where there might be three different clinical providers billing during the same tranche of time on an autism therapy client and that is because of poor rulemaking," Boliek explained. "Some of it is possibly illegal and probably illegal, and we’re going to point that out, and we’re going to try to…