Medicaid fraud fears grow amid massive red state billing spike in sector that also plagued Minnesota
Fox News
ANDREW MARK MILLER
Sat, May 9, 2026 at 5:00 AM EDT
As fraud concerns ramp up across the country, particularly involving Medicaid,North Carolina State Auditor Dave Boliek told Fox News Digital the problem is very real in his state, especially when it comes to autism therapy, an area that has been highly scrutinized in Minnesota.
Boliek is sounding the alarm on potential waste, fraud and abuse within the state’s Medicaid program, specifically noting in an interview with Fox News Digital a 47,000% explosion in autism therapy billings he has flagged since taking office last year.
"Those are vital services to folks and individuals that need that therapy," Boliek said. "But when you have, like in North Carolina, a system that went from $1.4 million or so in total billings for autism therapy to more than $660 million a year in billings on autism therapy within a five-year range, that begs an audit from the state auditor, who in North Carolina, we are the top watchdog agency for taxpayer waste, fraud and abuse prevention. So, we've dug down into that and are in the middle of that."
Boliek, who was speaking to Fox News Digital at the annual State Financial Officers Foundation conference in Orlando, says his office is "hand in hand" with Vice President JD Vance’s focus on eliminating waste, fraud and abuse to "make sure that the people who need the services and deserve those services get the services" without "wasting money."
One of the core problems, Boliek explained, is the system is oftentimes designed in a way that fails to properly safeguard against waste and abuse.
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"What we’ve got is we’ve seen examples where there might be three different clinical providers billing during the same tranche of time on an autism therapy client, and that is because of poor rulemaking," Boliek explained. "Some of it is possibly illegal and probably illegal, and we’re going to point that out, and we’re going to try to put people in cuffs because of it.
"But some of it might be technically legal because of the lax oversight from a Democrat-led Department of Health and Human Services," Boliek said, referencing the top state health agency in North Carolina.
In a March 10, 2026, hearing of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Medicaid, the North Carolina Department of Healthand Human Services presented data that matches Boliek's narrative of exponential growth in autism therapy.
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