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The Minnesota Department of Human Services is bringing on more than 160 additional staff to help inspect Medicaid providers for fraud. 

It’s part of the state’s push to crack down on fraud in social services programs, amid federal investigations.

Leaders at DHS said Monday that they’re planning to revalidate nearly 6,000 providers across 13 Medicaid programs that the department has identified as “high risk” for fraud. They’re looking for additional staff from other state agencies to help. 

Revalidating will involve reviewing paperwork and conducting unannounced site visits.

John Connolly is the deputy commissioner at DHS, and the state’s Medicaid director. He said the department revalidates providers regularly, but this will be an extra round of revalidation in addition to the usual schedule.

“Right now, we need to pull out all the stops and assure ourselves and the people of Minnesota that the providers of these services are qualified and eligible to carry out their work,” Connolly said. 

DHS also paused enrollment of new providers to those high-risk programs. 

The federal government is keeping pressure on the state to root out fraud, citing fraud prevention as a reason for the ongoing federal immigration operation in the state. Last month, federal officials said they intended to 

 in Medicaid funding to the state over fraud allegations — a decision that the DHS is in the process of 

Connolly said DHS is also revising a state plan to combat fraud, at the request of federal officials. He said the decision to withhold the money isn’t helping — and will hurt Minnesotans who rely on affected programs. 

“Recent actions create the appearance of a punitive action instead of a partnership to combat fraud,” Connolly said.

Leaders on major fraud cases in the state faced a shock last month when 

top prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office resigned

, as officials with the U.S. Department of Justice pushed them to investigate the widow of Renee Macklin Good, the first person killed by a federal agent in Minneapolis in January.

DHS Inspector General James Clark said he’d met with prosecutors in December to talk about collaborating on reducing fraud in the department. He said communication between DHS and the prosecutors’ office has always been infrequent, but that the recent meeting was a “very productive conversation.”

Since the resignations, he said, he hasn’t heard from the office.

“Unfortunately, I think all of the attorneys I’ve met with have since resigned from the office, and I haven’t had any follow-up from folks at the U.S. Attorney’s Office since then,” Clark said.

Officials with DHS said they’ll keep working to root out fraud while they await final federal decisions on their appeal of the move to withhold that $2 billion in funding — a decision which they said could take months.

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Fraud in Minnesota

Estelle Timar-Wilcox

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Minnesota’s Department of Human Services is bringing on more than 160 additional staff to help inspect Medicaid providers for fraud, as they face a federal threat to withhold $2 billion in Medicaid funds over fraud allegations. 

minnesota state capital building and snow

State adding staff to review nearly 6,000 Medicaid providers in Minnesota for potential fraud

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