Wisconsin Watch Media Partners Center (https://partners.wisconsinwatch.org/tag/audits/)
In a Medicaid audit closely watched by state clinics, as well as their political allies and opponents, Inspector General Alan White reduced the amount his office is seeking in repayment for birth control by 93 percent and acknowledged the state’s own instructions had “created confusion” for some clinics.
Two family planning clinics serving low-income women say their operations will be at serious financial risk if state auditors stand firm on claims that they overbilled Medicaid by $3.5 million, largely for birth control drugs and devices.
“My hunch is that if any one of us were audited it would come out the same way. We’re all operating the same way,” said Beth Hartung, president of the Wisconsin Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. “It would mean, quite frankly, that we would all close.”
Auditors released a report Wednesday documenting state employees’ misuse of state credit cards on 131 charges totaling nearly $75,000, including a fox fur stole, pricey airline tickets to Europe and $16,686 in inappropriate purchases by a state worker who subsequently resigned.