U.S. database for tracking Medicaid frauds falls short, auditor says

A federal data-sharing system meant to prevent healthcare providers banned from one state's Medicaid program from billing another state's program isn't working as intended, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General.
Two years after its creation, the data-sharing system contained no records from 17 states or the District of Columbia of doctors, nurses or other healthcare providers who had been "terminated," or banned from billing Medicaid, for fraud or other offenses, the independent auditor said in a report to be released Thursday.
Reuters reviewed a copy of the report in advance of its release.
The report also said that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that maintains the data-sharing system, made no effort to require states to report banned providers, though it is legally empowered to do so, and that when states did report them, the data was often unreliable or incomplete.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/us-usa-medicaid-database-idUSBREA2Q08D20140327?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews