DHH says $4M owed after audit of home health providers

State health officials say audits of in-home health providers that care for Medicaid patients turned up insufficient training documentation, a lack of criminal background checks on employees, timesheet discrepancies and outright fraud. Forty-one companies were reviewed by an accounting firm. Kimberly Sullivan, the program integrity chief for Louisiana’s Medicaid program, says the companies owe the Department of Health and Hospitals $4.2 million in overpayments and fines. The reviews were conducted over the fiscal year that ended in July. They were part of a DHH initiative to combat fraud that’s estimated to siphon off millions from the Medicaid program each year. The department is sending providers notifications of the audit findings this month. The health department says it will use the audit findings to change its monitoring policies.