Fraud is in focus at Minnesota Capitol. What are some proposals can Minnesotans expect?

Fraudsters have stolen millions in taxpayer money in Minnesota, putting pressure on lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to find solutions. Republicans and Democrats alike say doing so is a top priority for them this year, but they have different approaches to a fix. 

Last session in a divided Legislature—which is the same political makeup this year with a tied Minnesota House—lawmakers made kickbacks illegal, allowed payment pauses to providers at the first signs of fraud and added new protections for whistleblowers, among other provisions. 

What cleared the Senate with broad bipartisan support but not the House: a new independent Office of Inspector General to investigate fraud. Its future this year, though, is unclear since Republicans and Democrats in the House are at odds over what that new agency should look like.

"We've got to get away from thinking that there's just one bill on this, which has been the Republican approach of like the OIG is the end all be all—it's not," said Rep. Zack Stephenson, the House DFL leader. 

An Office of Inspector General is one proposal in a package of bills the House DFL brought forward Tuesday, though it differs from the Senate approach that has the support of a majority of both parties in that chamber and House Republicans. 

Stephenson said the Senate version doesn't do enough on the front end to stop fraud from happening in the first place, but Republicans have sharply criticized the removal of the law enforcement bureau from the House DFL plan, which they say is a key tool that would give the office much-needed authority. 

Twice in the last two weeks, that proposal has stalled in a House committee because neither side could come to consensus on how to move forward. 

"We're not going to let that bill move forward until we have a permanent solution to fraud and we think that that should be the goal is preventing fraud so it doesn't happen in the first place," Stephenson said Tuesday. "It isn't good enough just to lock up the people after the fact."

House Republicans said their other anti-fraud priorities include putting in place new guardrails around the 14 Medicaid programs deemed high-risk for fraud and putting in place accountability measures for agencies and their leaders when fraud occurs, noting the recent Office of Legislative Auditor report that found officials in the Department of Human Services were backdating documents. 

"The departments that enabled the fraud cannot be trusted to fix the problem themselves," Rep. Harry Niska, the Republican floor leader, told reporters last week.

But the OIG bill is the top issue for the GOP caucus.

"Nobody has even gotten fired for backdating documents in an audit. So we need an independent Office of Inspector General. We need it now," Niska said. "This bill has gone through enough of a process to where we could pass it, instead of having the Democrats slow-roll it and gut the bill."

Adding more investigators to the Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, implementing background checks for providers and requiring that those providers get surety bonds as financial security for the state as a condition of enrollment are among the House DFL priorities to fight fraud. 

They also said the state needs to invest in improving outdated technology that can create vulnerabilities in the system. 

"Many of the programs that are involved in the Medicaid space are Oregon Trail, vintage programming," Stephenson said. "But there is a significant price tag in some of these cases. There's also a federal match and so you can leverage federal dollars."

There could be room for agreement between Republicans and Democrats on that front. Last week in a separate news conference, Senate Republicans voiced their support for similar tech upgrades. 

They also said the back a plan to authorize electronic visit verification to ensure to ensure someone who is supposed to be at a site actually is present, which House Democrats also said was a priority Tuesday.

Sen. Jordan Rasmusson, a Republican, is co-authoring a bill in the Senate with Democrats that would implement this measure, which he described as "standard" in other states.

"[The Department of Human Services] has been talking about implementing these requirements for years, but have failed to do so and failed to protect taxpayers," he said. "We will be introducing a bill to require accelerated implementation of these basic program integrity measures."