IHSS provides a valuable service to those needing care. Recipients can remain safely at home, improving their quality of life. IHSS home care is far less expensive than a nursing facility, so it provides financial savings as well. It also serves public safety, since keeping elderly, blind and disabled citizens in their own homes helps stabilize families and neighborhoods.
IHSS is paid for by county, state and federal money so every tax dollar saved preventing fraud can go to truly needy IHSS recipients, as well as helping to pay for law enforcement and community health care agencies. Those of us in the public sector should always be vigilant to ensure tax dollars are used properly. Vigilance has never been more critical than during the budget crisis of today.
In July 2009, I started the multi-agency IHSS Fraud Task Force after a number of criminal cases revealed a need to protect victims from abuse and prevent the fraudulent theft of tax dollars. These cases exposed a system with few checks and balances. The task force is an unprecedented collaboration between local and state law enforcement, and social services agencies. Working together, the agencies are far more effective preventing and detecting fraud and mitigating financial loss to IHSS and other public assistance programs.
The task force has a multi-pronged approach, conducting training and community outreach for social workers, clerical and payroll staff, providers and the medical community, teaching about IHSS fraud and how to prevent it.
IHSS fraud cases include providers who bill the government for services they could not have performed, often because they were in jail or out of the country. In other cases, the government was billed for services by an in-home provider when the recipient was actually living in a nursing home or had died. Still others involved recipients who claimed to be unable to care for themselves and yet were being paid by the government to care for others. The task force uses electronic data-matching of information for IHSS recipients and care providers, jail records and vital statistics – such as death records – to uncover these frauds.
Another type of IHSS fraud involves recipients who use stolen personal information to enroll identity theft victims as their care provider and collect a check in that victim's name. In one case of internal fraud, a former social worker stole more than $324,000 in two years by using friends and family members to make claims for providing care to recipients they had never met.
These are just some examples of the opportunities for fraud in IHSS. Given that people with a history of theft, fraud or serious and violent felony records can easily become providers, there is no shortage of those willing to exploit the system.
For the past two fiscal years, the state budget included $10 million for IHSS fraud investigations. That made California eligible to receive $10 million in additional federal funds, totaling $20 million each fiscal year for distribution to any county willing to implement an IHSS fraud investigation plan. The grants enabled counties to combat IHSS fraud, many for the first time. The withdrawal of state funding may jeopardize the federal match and the battle to catch and reduce IHSS fraud.
Fraud takes limited dollars away from those who truly need IHSS services and from honest providers who care for those vulnerable recipients for low wages, no vacation pay, no retirement, no sick leave and usually no health benefits. Fraud also takes dollars away from the state and county general funds, where there is nothing to spare.
I am proud of what Sacramento County has been able to achieve, but there is a lot more to be done. The governor should protect IHSS fraud prevention funds, because fraud hurts everyone. Failing to do so will be a disservice to IHSS participants, taxpayers and communities throughout California.
No comments:
Post a Comment