Rep. Gabe Evans seeks to stop identity theft of Medicaid and Medicare doctors

Republican Rep. Gabe Evans of Colorado is leading a bipartisan effort to close a loophole in Medicare and Medicaid that he says is leading to identity theft.

Evans introduced a bill that would require states to regularly check social security rolls for deceased physicians whose Medicaid or Medicare identification numbers are still being used to bill for services.

Evans -- who has a son with serious medical problems -- says he wants to protect the federal health programs for those who need them most.

"Preventing that identity theft from being weaponized in the Medicaid space by removing providers who have passed on from the system and taking that provider number out of system as a viable method to get payment," he said, "is step one in how we reduce these instances of what amounts to identity theft of a provider."

He says the Government Accountability Office identified $54 billion in improper payments for Medicare and another $31 billion for Medicaid last year.

A recent audit also found problems at the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, which oversees Medicaid. The problems include missing eligibility documentation and incorrect procedure codes in billing. The department says most of the problems had no financial impact and affected only a small percentage of the claims processed. It released a statement saying, "The Department of Health Care Policy and Financing is committed to ensuring responsible use of taxpayer dollars to get Coloradans the care they qualify for and need to thrive, and we continue to implement changes and improvements to ensure this."

Evans' bill comes as the U.S. Senate considers a measure that would require the House Energy and Commerce Committee -- which Evans sits on -- to cut $880 billion in spending. Medicaid is the largest program the committee oversees. Colorado's Department of Health Care Policy and Financing says those cuts could result in hundreds of thousands of Coloradans losing coverage.