Combating Medicaid Fraud In New York State

New York’s Medicaid program is immense. In less than 10 years, enrollment in the program has jumped from 2.7 million in 2000 to 4.4 million in June 2009, second only to California (6.9 million). In just the past year the State's enrollment has swelled by nearly 300,000, and even with various proposed cuts and a proposed $1.14 billion in additional taxes earmarked to support health care, the Governor projects that $52.5 billion will be spent on Medicaid in New York in the 2010-11 fiscal year. That’s one billion dollars per week being paid to over 70,000 providers of health care services, goods and drugs. For any given five-year period, one of the Task Force presenters estimated the number of providers, overall, to be 200,000.