Colorado could have to pay back millions in Medicaid bonuses

The state of Colorado could have to pay back more than $38 million it received in bonuses from the federal government for enrolling more children in Medicaid, after an audit concluded the state received money for kids who didn’t qualify.

The audit was conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general’s office and was released last week. It found that Colorado sought bonuses for kids listed under a category for the blind and disabled. Kids in that category weren’t counted in the federal government’s earlier baseline tally of child Medicaid recipients, meaning that including them in later numbers made the increases in enrollment look bigger than the audit says they should have been.

The audit says the state’s counting method resulted, “in an artificially inflated estimate of growth in children enrolled in the State’s Medicaid program.”

State officials, though, are fighting the audit’s findings, saying that they followed the law and that Medicaid leaders provided conflicting guidance on bonus eligibility. They say it’s unfair to exclude children who are blind and disabled from the bonus counts.

Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/2016/08/16/colorado-pay-back-medicaid-bonuses/