The Sunset Advisory Commission today released its staff report on their observations and recommendations relating to the State Board of Dental Examiners. Basically, they found it had too many board members who did too little and got mired in business- … Read More
Today the Sixth Court of Appeals issued their decision in the Medicaid payment hold case of Antoine Dental Center of Houston. The court again exonerated the practice from allegations of Medicaid fraud, again terminated the payment hold and, for the … Read More
Gov. Rick Scott of Florida has signed into law changes that bring back DMOs such as MCNA and Dentaquest into Florida’s dental Medicaid program if all goes well. Florida governor signs new bill relating to dental Medicaid Florida HB 819, … Read More
Governor Greg Abbott has named Steve Austin chair of the State Board of Dental Examiners. The governor has also appointed Diane Garza for a term set to expire February 1, 2017, appointed Bryan Henderson, II, Jorge Quirch and Rich Villa … Read More
Four federal lawmakers from New Mexico – Sen. Martin Heinrich, Sen. Tom Udall, Rep. Ben Ray Luján and Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham – filed a bill last week to guarantee due process rights to Medicaid providers across the country who are … Read More
Well, the answer to that question is about to be answered shortly. TDMR was contacted today by none other than Dr. Paul Dunn, the long-suffering dentist from Levelland who thought his troubles with Medicaid were over when he settled his … Read More
USA Today reported last week that 27 corporations listed in the Standard & Poor’s 500 paid no income tax for 2015 despite having pre-tax profits. The corporate giants include General Motors, Hewlett Packard, United Continental, News Corp, Weyerhauser amongst others. … Read More
The Texas Supreme Court this week issued a ruling allowing a whistleblower suit filed by Michael McMillen, a former Health and Human Services Commission Office of Inspector General attorney, to continue. McMillen contends he was fired in early 2012 for reporting … Read More
UPDATE: MCNA has responded to our recent request for a contact for provider complaints and provided information about their complaint process. See information below. Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) received significant mention in the report issued by the Health and Human … Read More
UPDATE: The Travis County Public Integrity Unit has forwarded the criminal investigation into the 21 CT matter to another undisclosed investigative unit. Per the Unit’s head, the investigation is starting to move faster and was moved for reason of expertise … Read More
There have been many changes for Medicaid dental providers over the last few years. The change from fee-for-service to managed care. The upheaval caused by the former Health and Human Services Commission Office of Inspector General and rampant allegations … Read More
No, that wasn’t $200 million. It wasn’t $50 million. It wasn’t even $500,000 or $250,000. The amount of dental fraud found and recovered by Texas dental management organizations in 2015 was only $243,982.84 per the “HHSC OIG Annual Report on … Read More
The Texas Tribune this morning reported that former Texas governor Rick Perry is now the chief strategy officer over at MCNA, one of the two managed care organizations Texas now employs to handle Medicaid dental. It is Perry’s first employment position after … Read More
This afternoon, the Health and Human Services Commission Inspector General Stuart Bowen sent out his second quarterly report – quite unlike his predecessor who sent out no such reports. It is a remarkable 28-pages and will take some time to … Read More
We want to close out 2015 with a round-up of the year’s most important stories relating to TDMR issues. It has been an exceptional year for changes at the Health and Human Services Commission. The implosion that occurred at HHSC … Read More
With the Government Accounting Office estimating that in 2014 some $124 billion was siphoned off the Medicaid and Medicare system nationally, we are again witnessing the truly schizophrenic nature of Medicaid enforcement actions in this country. In New York, this past week the … Read More
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission sent out an email notification this morning that it is holding a number of public forums about the restructuring of the agency and requesting stakeholder input. We strongly suggest that Medicaid providers take … Read More
A suit to compel the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to release the full list of names of Medicaid providers that have been placed under a “credible allegation of fraud” payment hold since 2010 has been filed in Travis … Read More
This past Friday, the Texas Supreme Court dismissed a petition from the Texas Office of Attorney General to review a 3rd Court of Appeal decision preventing the Health and Human Services Commission Office of Inspector General from placing payment holds … Read More
As TDMR reported back at the end of September, the new Health and Human Services Commission Inspector General Stuart Bowen had started settling outstanding investigations and cases against Medicaid dentists and providers. Senator Charles Perry was quoted in the media … Read More
