Comments about ‘Medicaid performance audit shows millions of dollars could be saved’

This is the elephant in the parlor. It's about time someone looks after our money. This same government now wants to administer our entire health care dollar. The cheats are doing a money dance. Heaven help us.

Hasn't there been a lot of bad Medicaid audits recently. Perhaps the legislature needs to make some changes in the leadership (or lack of) at Medicaid...who is the director in charge of that program anyway?

Remember, the Medicaid program is a huge maze of conflicting mandates, policies and procedures, and they end up reimbursing providers less than it costs to deliver the services. Few doctors even are wiling to participate, and it will get worse.

The green eyeshade auditors can go thru and nitpick costs long after the fact, but are we allowing doctors to treat the sick or allowing accountants to second guess their decisions?

Are these the "death panels" who will be rationing care?

We need to get the government OUT OF MEDICAL CARE at every level, and return it to free enterprise transactions between the doctors and the patients.

Yeah, the socialists will never go for that, but it would be far better than allowing even more government bureaucracy to become involved.

What our Utah legislators must start doing to save and cut waste in Medicare and Medicaid spending is start identifying individuals as citizens regardless of age. That should take tens of thousands of illegals in Utah off the looting list.

Change the state laws that citizens identification required in hospitals and emergency rooms and send them to their respective Embassy's. Tens of thousands of illegals are the problem in excessive costs with their plundering and looting the american people and our government.

The last comment says it all.... "hopes lawmakers will put the audit's cost-saving recommendations into practice before resorting to more cuts in services."
Fat chance lawmakers will do the right thing. It is far easier to just cut benefits or raise taxes. Unless the lawmakers are impacted by their own decisions, nothing ever changes. Wealth limits for all politicians would help.

Medicaid is state, Medicare is Federal.

This is an indictment of State, not Federal management.

If Government run options were so inefficient, why did the Health Care Industry kill the public option?

Let's use the high number reported and say there was $19 million in "waste."

That's barely 1% of the program's $1.7 billion dollar budget.

No one should be indifferent to taxpayer dollars being spent inefficiently, but to conclude that the program itself is wrought with waster on the basis of these numbers is nonsense.

How many billion-dollar private organizations would be able to report that their "waste" amounted to just 1% of their expenditures?

And by the way - "waste" is a loaded word. We should all be wary of simplistic labels being applied to complex problems.

Medicaid is not perfect, however do not demonize the very system that has saved countless lives. I work with little children and Families who have greatly benefited from this program. Don't kid yourselves if you think the Doctor's are running the program with private Insurance..oh and I hope all of you who are against social insurance(not socialized medicine) will forfeit your right to medicare when you reach 65.

You want to talk about ways to save money in Medicaid? Try cutting capitated rates that Medicaid pays out either to the University Hospital system or IHC depending on which program the Medicaid recipient chooses. These rates are paid directly from state coffers and run $200-$300/ month for each person on Medicaid regardless of if they do or don't use services. To make matters worse then people on Medicaid can't even get in to see a doctor because so many don't accept new Medicaid patients. To top it all off if the state makes an error and issues a person Medicaid in a month they don't qualify, they make the recipient pay all claims and premiums back to the state even if the recipient did not use any services and the only expense incurred was the capitated rate the state pays out.

How about stopping Medicaid fraud in the ER? That would save us all a lot of money. Most of the people on Medicaid think that the ER is a free clinic for them. I have actually heard them say, "we don't like to wait in the clinic, so we come here because it doesn't cost us anything." Just try to collect their $3.00 co-pay...it never happens. How about cutting back on that?!?

$7 million in accounting errors. I want to have that job, aparrently they aren't too concerned with hard work. ;) Why aren't the people who overbilled the state brought up on fraud charges?

Tired Nurse, that's not a problem with Medicaid, but a fact of life with our current health care system. Many doctors refuse to take on new patients, making it almost impossible for some to find help, except in a Hospital.

Thank you for helping the poor in your job. It must be a great feeling knowing that you are helping care for those who can't find help elsewhere.

The public needs to know about the millions being spent on foreign refugees in Utah !!!
I see this in health care daily. and they keep coming and coming....

Oh no, Herbertcare is a failure!

They could also save money buy giving each client a plastic medicaid card instead of printing thousands of cards a month
Some households get multiple cards because children get different coverage I am appalled that nobody has thought of this very simple solution

Because no matter the inefficiency of a government program, it will still eat at your business.

It's like playing on a team where the coach's kid gets to play the most minutes, no matter how bad he is.

Opposing the public option is in no way indicative of a company's confidence in its business model; rather, it indicates that no one likes to play with someone who doesn't follow the rules.

This is just another reason why the government should not run health care. What prompted this audit and why are audits not done more frequently?

re:to Silva

That's exactly what we have now. The health care industry sells insurance to only the healthy, and dumps the sick onto government insurance. They are the coaches son.