Texas Sues Xerox to Recover Millions in Allegedly Misspent Money
As the Texas Attorney General's office on Friday announced it filed a lawsuit against state contractor Xerox, in an effort to reclaim hundreds of millions of dollars the company allegedly erroneously doled out for medically unnecessary Medicaid claims, the Health and Human Services Commission also notified the contractor that it plans to terminate its contract.
“Xerox’s unlawful acts resulted in a substantial breach of safeguards intended to protect taxpayer dollars, maintain the integrity of Medicaid policies, and ensure the appropriate delivery of services to Medicaid clients,” the state’s legal complaint alleges. “Xerox permitted an unprecedented loss of Medicaid funds to predatory and unscrupulous dental providers. As a result of the conduct of both Xerox and these providers, the Medicaid program was deeply compromised.”
The lawsuit was filed in Travis County district court, and the state has asked for a jury trial.
“Unfortunately, this misdirected lawsuit focuses on Xerox rather than on the dentists who took advantage of the program,” a Xerox spokesman, Kevin Lightfoot, said in a statement. “We have never engaged in fraudulent activity and always operated with complete transparency.”
The state is terminating its contract with the Texas Medicaid and Healthcare Partnership, a Xerox subsidiary. Instead, the state plans to sign a three-year agreement with Accenture, a different subcontractor under Xerox, to take over TMHP’s role in processing Medicaid claims on August 1. Then, the state will conduct a competitive bidding process to select a new contractor. Accenture has operated the state’s Medicaid claims payment system since 2004.
More at http://www.texastribune.org/2014/05/09/texas-sues-xerox-recover-millions-misspent-money/ .
[font color=green]Ironic that the state is returning to Accenture after this story from 2009:
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/state-accenture-split-is-final/nRRmr/ .
Can the attorney general's office under Greg Abbott finally prevail in a lawsuit? Is it time to return the review of the Medicaid program to dedicated employees at the Texas Department of Health and Human Services instead of bidding out contracts to outside sources that have minimal interest in monitoring those contracts? It's time to stop outsourcing contracts.[/font]
= new reply since forum marked as read
