A glimpse into Minnesota legislative efforts to fight fraud next session

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    Minnesota House holds fraud hearing 

The Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee met Wednesday morning for the last hearing before the new legislative session begins next month.

The hearing called leaders of the Minnesota Management and Budget (MMB) and the Department of Administration to testify.

State budget officials shared on Wednesday how they have deployed a team of data scientists to help at Minnesota’s Department of Human Services (DHS) to detect fraud in programs.

“They are deployed to help strengthen data-driven approaches to identifying anomalous provider behavior more quickly — this work is improving Medicaid investigations and generating practical lessons that MMB and DHS are now sharing with other agencies to support broader use of data to identify fraud patterns,” said Britta Reitan, deputy commissioner of Minnesota Management and Budget.

MMB officials mentioned they will ask lawmakers for additional oversight to spot and go after fraud. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle promise changes to how state government fights fraud in programs.

“Minnesotans are frustrated — they expect accountability, they expect this fraud to stop,” said Republican Rep. Kristin Robbins, Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy chair.

“The Office of Inspector General (OIG) will help — that would be an independent Inspector General within the executive branch that would have authority,” Rep. Robbins said, adding that she’ll push this session. “I know the OIG bill we pushed last session would certainly have teeth.”

The OIG bill passed in the Minnesota Senate but didn’t come to a vote in the House. Minneapolis DFL Rep. Emma Greenman said the state has more than 300,000 Medicaid providers.

“We have for-profit fraudsters who have targeted government services for their own personal gain,” Rep. Greenman said of those providers who are committing fraud.

Greenman said she would like to possibly change how the state provides social services programs instead of relying on private contractors, and get state government more involved providing services.

“We need to get to the root of this problem, or we are going to continue to be playing ‘whack-a-mole,’” Rep. Greenman said.
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