Even Tougher Medicaid Fraud Law Planned

Medicaid fraud legislation will be back in the regular legislative session in January after lawmakers could not reach enough of a compromise to trigger a special legislative session this week. But it won’t be the same. It will be tougher. The House has refused to accept the strong medicaid fraud bill backed by the senate and the governor…and the governor refused to call a session to pass the bill providing Medical Assistance to Workers with Disabilities–which the House wants–because of that. Senator Chris Koster of Harrisonville, the sponsor of the fraud bill, says that’s okay because he wants to make the fraud provisions tougher next year. And he wants to make it a pocketbook issue for providers. He says he’s willing to work with House members to raise state reimbursements to medicaid service providers. But he says he will not allow them to get “another dollar” until the state enactes his tougher anti-medicaid-fraud legislation. House critics of Koster’s bill this year argued the provisions against Medicaid fraud would drive doctors out of Missouri. Koster doesn’t buy that claim one bit. He says 20 states have similar fraud programs to the one he proposed this year, and doctors have not left those states. So next year, he has a new deal—if doctors and other medicaid providers want more money from the state, they’d better be ready to accept even tougher fraud standards. Introduction of bills for the 2007 legislative session begins December 1