Medicaid

Attorney General Kris Mayes says a $6 million grant program will support tribal communities impacted by fraudulent sober living home schemes.

A Navajo state senator is hoping for final approval of her bill to tighten regulations for rehab facilities amid widespread fraud that has bilked millions in Arizona Medicaid dollars and scammed Native Americans seeking help for addictions.

Authorities say a huge Tucson addiction recovery community shuttered this week, leaving more than 200 people homeless as Arizona investigates widespread Medicaid fraud largely affecting Native Americans.

Hundreds of Native Americans have been recruited to addiction treatment centers in Phoenix from states as far away as Montana in a widespread billing scheme that mostly targeted Medicaid’s American Indian Health Program.

Federal officials are raising concerns that long call center wait times may be contributing to a surge in the number of people losing Medicaid health care coverage.

A widespread Medicaid scam that left an unknown number of Native Americans homeless in Phoenix is being declared a public health state of emergency by the Blackfeet Nation of Montana after the Navajo Nation took similar action in June.

An estimated 150,000 people have been dropped from the state’s Medicaid rolls so far with more than three-quarters of them removed for procedural errors.

More than 1 million people have been dropped from Medicaid in the past couple of months as some states move swiftly to halt health care coverage following the end of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Navajo Nation has begun an effort to assist victims of an alleged Medicaid fraud scheme that impacted thousands of tribal members. The new emergency outreach program has already begun work in the Phoenix metro area.

Gov. Katie Hobbs has announced actions against more than a hundred alleged fraudulent Medicaid providers that allegedly cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars.