With improper Medicaid payments nearly twice as high as they were just a few years ago, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is reaching out to state Medicaid programs with suggestions for how to reduce those improper payments.

The problem?

According to CMS,

States are facing greater challenges keeping pace with stricter enrollment requirements, tracking providers who have been excluded from other States’ or Federal health care programs, and generally adapting to changing regulations for qualifications of certain provider types.

In a new e-alert, CMS identifies factors that contribute to improper payments – things like ineligible and excluded providers, provider identity theft, medical services not provided, phantom or invalid provider addresses and ID numbers, and more. For each factor it identifies in the new e-alert CMS suggests solutions and directs interested parties to resources that can help them with those solutions.

To learn more about the extent of improper Medicaid payments and their recent increase, what has contributed to that rise, and possible solutions go here to see the CMS e-alert “Medicaid Improper Payments.”