The weekend can’t come fast enough for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.
On Wednesday, federal officials asked the state’s largest agency to return $57,884,268, the federal share of $95,359,841 in supplemental payments to doctors made improperly from 2004 to 2007.
The report by the Officer of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said HHSC made payments to ineligible providers and overstated fees in claims made through the six hospitals in the University of Texas health system.
OIG presented its bill two days after Charles Smith, HHSC’s executive commissioner, asked a state House committee for permission to start over to create a data warehouse, having so far spent $35 million and nine years to produce nothing but reports and checks to consultants.
The supplemental program had been created to provide incentives to doctors to expand care to patients under Medicaid.