Minnesota legislative auditor to release new autism center fraud report
Minnesota's Office of the Legislative Auditor will release a report on Tuesday that looks into how some Medicaid fraud schemes were investigated in the state.
The report focuses on fraud that happened in what's called the Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention Program, or EIDBI, which provides help to children with autism.
The legislative auditor says the report will focus on two main issues: why the state Department of Human Services' Office of Inspector General closed complaints regarding EIDBI providers without further investigation, and whether the staff in the inspector general's office took reasonable steps to investigate allegations of fraud, theft, abuse and error by EIDBI providers.
The report comes just weeks after Abdinajib Yussuf pleaded guilty to wire fraud tied to autism service centers. Asha Farhan Hassan pleaded guilty late last year.
According to the federal indictment, Yussuf would recruit families to his company, Star Autism Center. If they didn't have a diagnosis, prosecutors say he would work with service professionals to get children qualified and then submit millions of dollars in claims for Medicaid reimbursement.
They say he'd then share "kickback" payments to parents. In that case, he collected more than $6 million. We know that he didn't get everything he billed for, with the state denying at least $1.2 million over two years.
The report is expected to be released Tuesday at 9 a.m.
Stay with WCCO for more on this developing story.