Overview
- CMS sent Florida officials a 30-day request for detailed information on Medicaid oversight, with Dr. Mehmet Oz calling the state a long-running health care fraud hotspot.
- Florida becomes at least the fifth state in the campaign after similar inquiries to New York, Minnesota, Maine and California.
- CMS previously deferred roughly $260 million in Medicaid payments to Minnesota pending a corrective plan and imposed a six-month freeze on new Medicare enrollments for DMEPOS suppliers.
- At a House Energy and Commerce oversight hearing, Oz did not appear, and deputy administrator Kimberly Brandt said an agency fraud war room is using AI, heat maps and data analysis to flag hotspots.
- Florida’s attorney general and other state officials signaled cooperation, while Democratic lawmakers and academics warned the crackdown could imperil Home and Community-Based Services and cited Trump pardons of convicted fraudsters.