A new federal audit of Medicaid payments to autism therapy providers contains a stark finding: All of the client records inspected had payments that were either improper or suspected to be.
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General looked specifically at payments to Indiana providers for performing applied behavior analysis, a commonly used therapy for managing autism symptoms. Indiana’s was the first of nine audits the agency plans to perform into state Medicaid payments for ABA.
The report’s central finding is that Indiana made at least $56.6 million in improper Medicaid payments plus $76.7 million in potentially improper payments for ABA in 2019 and 2020, or at least $133 million total in estimated improper or potentially improper payments. But it wasn’t just money that was lost. The audit also found that some of the therapy providers weren’t trained or certified.
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