No, that wasn’t $200 million. It wasn’t $50 million. It wasn’t even $500,000 or $250,000.
The amount of dental fraud found and recovered by Texas dental management organizations in 2015 was only $243,982.84 per the “HHSC OIG Annual Report on Certain Fraud and Abuse Recoveries by Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) – SFY 2015” released a few days ago.
This is the third report in a row (see 2012, no report for 2013, 2014) that has shown an almost insignificant amount of fraud compared to the massive budget for Medicaid dental programs. Considering that HHSC let $100,000 go to a single employee on paid administrative leave and sitting at home, $250,000 for approximately 3,000 Medicaid dentists is pretty good.
It again belies the mega-fraud dollars claimed previously by people in HHSC long gone and better forgotten. In fact, it should put those allegations to rest.