UPDATE: YouTube video added of hearing 22-1046 Malouf v. State ex rel. Ellis Supreme Court Hearing, January 31, 2024 It might just be possible that more than a dozen years after the great WFAA expose on “Crooked Teeth,” a Medicaid … Read More
This week, Pro Publica and the Texas Tribune released the results of an investigation into the Texas Office of Attorney General Civil Medicaid Fraud unit and its recent tremendous loss of staff coinciding with the firing of its long-time head, … Read More
This week, Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a press release touting his agency’s recovery of some $203 million in 2023 from Medicaid fraud, waste, and abuse. The figures come from the 2023 Joint Interagency Coordination Report, which “summarizes the collective … Read More
TDMR has written extensively on how the provisions of the Texas Medicaid Prevention Act may be used by apparently unscrupulous relators to seemingly blackmail honest dentists into hefty monetary settlements to avoid costly and lengthy litigation. Problems with TMFPA The … Read More
We’re not exactly sure what happened, but Raymond C. Winter, who headed up the Civil Medicaid Fraud division of the Office of the Attorney General of Texas for the last 15 years, is no longer there. According to his LinkedIn … Read More
More trouble for Texas’s latest Medicaid contractor, Conduent. Needless to say, insurance providers AIG and partner companies are appalled that the Delaware judge in their case against Conduent granted a retrial and dismissed the jury verdict that Conduent had committed … Read More
You just can’t make this stuff up. HHS just contracted with Conduent again Texas just rehired Conduent, the company it had fired in 2014 as its lead Medicaid contractor and then accused of $1.2 billion in Medicaid fraud which it … Read More
UPDATE: Taxpayers to pay settlement which the Legislature must approve. Attorney General Ken Paxton and four of his former top deputies who said he improperly fired them after they accused him of crimes have reached a tentative agreement to end … Read More
It is with some irony that a company that has been found guilty of insurance fraud by a jury in Delaware (and apparently colluding with the Texas Office of the Attorney General to do so) is still a major player in … Read More
In March TDMR reported on the federal HHS-OIG report about the 2021 cumulative activities of state Medicaid Fraud Control Units around the country. As there were no state breakdowns, we filed an access to information request with the Office of … Read More
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General recently released its 2021 Medicaid Fraud Control Units (MFCU) Fiscal Year 2021 Annual Report. Investigates criminal fraud Medicaid Fraud Control Units have the job of investigating criminal fraud by … Read More
The Houston Chronicle broke a bombshell story today (paywall, unfortunately). This ortho story still has legs. OAG assisted company they were suing to defraud insurer The Chronicle reported that the Office of the Attorney General had secretly made last-minute modifications … Read More
This is a trial balloon. We’ve written numerous articles about the need for changes to the Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act. The Act needs to be a deterrent for real fraudsters, not a state-supported protection racket to be used against … Read More
Our last story on reputationally challenged qui tam relator Joshua Lafountain and the highly questionable settlements forced from a large number of Medicaid dental entities, supported by the Office of the Attorney General, brought about an outraged comment from an … Read More
Back in 2020, we started reporting on the various whistleblower claims brought by Joshua Lafountain, a former dental office manager in Dallas with no formal dental training, against 71 various Medicaid dentists and dental entities. Although he had never worked … Read More
Medicaid fraud or fraud of any type is serious business, and something TDMR decries. Those low enough to use their position as healthcare professionals to bilk federal and state governments for personal gain that cheats the taxpayer and young underprivileged … Read More
This past week the Attorney General of Texas sent out a press release that deemed agency personnel who had complained about potential conflicts of interest by the AG himself were “rogue political appointees” rather than whistleblowers because they had only … Read More
Some stories never die. Here we are a decade later still talking about “Crooked Teeth” and the outcome of all those stories that ran on WFAA alleging hundreds of millions of dollars of Medicaid fraud committed by Texas orthodontists and dentists. … Read More
A recent open records request to the Texas Office of the Attorney General reveals that the state has paid out so far $457,416.67 to qui tam relator Joshua Lafountain. No knowledge or evidence of wrongdoing TDMR reported, starting last May, … Read More
The testimony in favor of changes to the Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act by Austin administrative attorney Jason Ray is important for Medicaid providers to read. He testified on April 14 supporting the committee substitute version of bill HB3802 regarding … Read More
Almost a decade ago, on May 13, 2011, Byron Harris, famed WFAA investigative reporter, started a large freight train roaring down the track with his first story of a series, “Texas taxpayers pay big for straight teeth.” False narrative destroyed … Read More
TDMR recently reported about an open record request filed with the Office of the Attorney General to find out how many dentists were indicted for Medicaid fraud by the OAG’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU), the section of the OAG … Read More
More details have emerged about Joshua Lafountain, the relator in a Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act qui tam lawsuit filed against 71 dental organizations and dentists in 2016. The case is now before a judge in Dallas County District Court. … Read More
Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office yesterday sent out a press release announcing a final judgment in the civil Medicaid fraud case against Dr. Richard Malouf. Here is the text of the release: AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton today announced … Read More
The Attorney General of Texas Ken Paxton sent out a press release Thursday that a Travis County judge had issued a summary judgment ordering Dr. Richard Malouf of Dallas to pay Texas back some $12 million for Medicaid fraud. The court … Read More
Nearly everyone in Texas is affected by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In 2018, Attorney General Ken Paxton led a 20-state coalition lawsuit against the federal government which claimed the ACA’s individual mandate was unconstitutional. A Texas federal judge ruled … Read More
It appears that Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG) forgot to sue Xerox to recover over $133 million that the federal government determined it was owed because of the state’s lack of oversight over Xerox, its then-Medicaid claims administrator, … Read More
