State Senator Explains Why She’s Calling for Federal Fraud Investigation

(KNSI) – State Senator Kristin Robbins is explaining why several Minnesota Republican officials are asking the feds to step in and investigate fraud in the state Department of Health.

Robbins told KNSI Radio Thursday that legislators have limited ability to rein in mismanagement in St. Paul. “Because we didn’t get that Office of Inspector General Bill passed this session, where we embed an OIG into the executive branch, we still don’t have, as the legislative branch, real teeth in the executive branch. So, that’s why we need the feds to come in, because they will be able to provide the accountability that the Walz administration has failed to do.”

The letter is addressed to the Center for Medicaid Services Inspector General, Juliet Hodgkins. The letter comes at a time when fraud at the state level is likely to exceed $1 billion in less than a decade.

During the Feeding Our Future scandal investigation, an even larger fraud was uncovered. Autism clinics in St. Cloud and several other cities were raided earlier this year for submitting fraudulent claims.

Parents were allegedly paid to bring their children in for treatment they didn’t need. In some cases, Medicaid was billed for providing a service at the same time the child was at school or homebound and unable to go to the clinic. Robbins says, in hindsight, these scams were easy to uncover with basic internal controls at the Minnesota Department of Health.

She notes, “The fact that they didn’t recognize, ‘Oh, feeding 5,000 kids every day, seven days a week, doesn’t make sense.’ Or that, ‘Oh, 22 addresses for housing stabilization services at the Griggs-Midway building, maybe that doesn’t make sense.'”

Both the Medicaid and Feeding our Future scandals are being looked into by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

___