State auditor report: 124,000 double-dipping in Medicaid in Ohio and other states

By Erin Glynn - Columbus Dispatch / March 26, 2024

Steven Voigt, deputy director of the Ohio Department of Medicaid, said in a response statement that the department has questions about the report's methodology and could not confirm its conclusions

State Auditor Keith Faber found that more than 124,000 people were simultaneously enrolled in Ohio's Medicaid program and the Medicaid program of at least one other state, according to a report released Tuesday.

Steven Voigt, deputy director of the Ohio Department of Medicaid, said in a response statement that the department has questions about the report's methodology and could not confirm its conclusions.

The auditor's office looked through data from 2019 through 2022 to find people who were enrolled in multiple states' Medicaid programs for some time within those four years. Auditors found over 2,300 people were enrolled in multiple state programs for all four years.

“Every dollar spent for individuals not eligible to receive Ohio Medicaid services is a dollar that’s not going to residents who should be receiving assistance,” Faber said in a news release on Tuesday.

Medicaid is a state and federally funded health insurance program for low-income and disabled people. Ohio Medicaid covered 3.55 million people in 2023, including 1.33 million children. That's about 30% of Ohio's population. It costs about $35 billion a year, but the federal government picks up 73% of that tab.

Faber called for the Ohio Department of Medicaid to do more to address the issue.

What does the report say?

The auditor's office examined the per-person payments Medicaid makes for 90% of its enrollees and found that Ohio spent over $1 billion in payments for people also enrolled in another state's program. Auditors looked at a random sample of 125 people enrolled in multiple state Medicaid programs to try to determine where they lived and when.

The report makes five recommendations for the Ohio Department of Medicaid, including using more technology in the enrollment process and asking more questions in the application process to determine if someone is a new Ohio resident. The auditor's office also urged the department to advocate for a system to bring up the information if someone is enrolled in another state's Medicaid program.

"The data shows that public dollars were misspent due to concurrent enrollment. All taxpayers are impacted when each state is not making every effort to guard against misspent public dollars," auditor's office said in the report.

What does the Ohio Department of Medicaid say?

Voigt said the department was unable to confirm the conclusions of the auditor's report because the auditor's office did not identify the 125 cases examined, despite the department's request for the data.

He said in the statement that the report also does not account for the federal government's increased requirements during the pandemic to maintain Medicaid enrollment except in a few circumstances, which he said affected state's ability to remove people from Medicaid rolls.

Voigt also said that the public assistance reporting information system already exists for states to discover whether someone is already receiving Medicaid benefits in two or more states.