Alpha News was on location as a search warrant was being served at several locations related to a “massive scheme to defraud” Medicaid and Minnesota’s Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) program.
According to the search warrant, the fraud investigation involves HSS providers who billed for various services intended to provide stable housing for Minnesotans.
The search warrant states, “The Program has proved to be extremely vulnerable to fraud.”
The vulnerability stems from limited requirements for service providers and the vast services they can provide for Medicaid reimbursement.
“Since Minnesota became the first state to offer Medicaid coverage for Housing Stabilization Services, dozens of new companies have been created and enrolled in the program. These companies, and the individuals who run them, have taken advantage of the housing crisis and the drug addiction crisis in Minnesota to prey on individuals who need help getting back on their feet as they recover from drug addiction,” the warrant says.
“These companies and individuals do so by contacting Medicaid-eligible people in halfway houses and residential drug treatment facilities and offering to help them find stable housing. After registering these people to receive housing stabilization services, the companies fraudulently claim to provide dozens of Program service hours to their new ‘clients.’ In reality, client after client has reported that they received little or no actual services or assistance from these companies. But the companies engaged in this scheme have received millions of dollars in Medicaid funds for housing stabilization services they did not actually provide,” it continues.
HSS providers can bill Medicaid for providing all kinds of housing-related services, including: consultations, housing transition services, housing sustaining services, moving expenses, and other services.
https://alphanews.org/breaking-feds-execute-search-warrants-connected-to-massive-scheme-to-defraud-a-minnesota-housing-program/