The director of the Arizona Medicaid agency resigned this week, as expected to face legislators about the management of a mass fraud that largely attacked the Native Americans.
Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, announced Wednesday that she had accepted the resignation of Carmen Heedia, director of the Arizona medical cost containment system. The governor praised the leadership of the Heredia agency while blaming Republican legislators for politicizing the confirmation process, saying that it had been clear that he would not confirm the nomination of Heredia.
Senator Jake Hoffman, Republican and president of the Director Nominations Senate Committee, said in a statement that when responding to the fraud scheme, Heredia had “misrepresented” the suspensions of Hunds of behavioral health suppliers. Heredia had served as head of AHCC without confirmation of the Senate since the beginning of 2023, several years after the authorities say that fraud probably begged the republican administration of former Governor Doug Ducey. In the year before Heredia became a director, the records show that officials were warned that fraud was damaging patients, but fought to respond and could not alert the public, what Heredia did along with other state leaders in May 2023.
(Earlier this year, a Ducey spokesman did not comment on the lost opportunities to stop fraud, but said that the former governor did everything possible to help in the Hobbs transition).
Under the leadership of Heredia, AHCCCS with the payment of heroes to more than 300 companies while the agency investigated the accusations that they invoiced drugs for treatment services. Often, the services had no province, and the business owners were accused of allowing patients to continue the use of substances that expected to overcome through treatment.
In a statement, Heredia said he presented his resignation with a heavy heart and expressed Conern Conern that a partisan agenda resulted in professionals to be dragged “through harmful career audiences.” Two years ago, the Republicans of the Senate derailed the nomination of one of the previous Hobbs selections to direct the Department of Health.
Last September, more than a year after repression began, the Arizona and Propublic Research Research Center reported that the suspensions had left homeless patients. The victims of the scheme, some of other states, also ran out of drug treatment and alcohol in which they begin.
Approximately several years, companies in much of Arizona, but mainly in Phoenix, restarted huge reimbursements of Medicaid by enrolling American natives in their programs and billing the State Health Program of American India to exorbitant rates. BitSbitant Forbit Tasas bit. (AIHP is a Medicaid insurance option that, until fraud was discovered, had not established the amount of money that money suppliers could bill services).
At a press conference on Thursday, Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, said he had one leg more than 100 accusations and 25 sentences so far in relations with the scheme. He also said he expected more accusations to come.
AHCCCS said in the last two years that the highest priority of officials was patient safety, and in May 2023, the agency established a direct line for victims. Tips stays at the hotel hotel for displaced people of closed facilities. However, AHCCCS said last year that he had no record of what happened with most people who call the 11,400 people on the direct line, largely because after six months he had stopped tracking the results for people who do not stay in a hotel. According to the available data, more than 575 people ended up without housing or last September. Azcir and Propublic also found that at least 40 indigenous residents of sober houses and treatment facilities in the Phoenix area died when the state sought their response.
A handful of suspended suppliers, of hundreds investigated, were allowed to resume the billing of Medicaid after eliminating accusations with the State. But they said that the suspensions still pushed them to the edge financially and rented the care of their patients, found Azcir and Propublic. As a result, Heredia’s rapid and aggressive response to the crisis, which the authorities said it was necessary to eliminate fraud and save lives, worried about behavior health care, especially for American natives, was increasingly accessing.
“Under Katie Hobbs’ leadership, Heredia’s response has been incredible disturbing, for saying the least,” said Hoffman. “We have a broken system due to the poor management of Heredia, and our vulnerable populations are trapped in this collapse.”
A spokesman for the Senate Republicans rejected a request for an interview with Hoffman.
While Hoffman’s statement focused mainly on the fraud scheme that the authorities say it cost the state $ 2 billion, he also said a toks problem with other issues within the AHCCC that involve long -term attention.
In addition to the resignation of Heredia, Jennifer Cunico, director of the Department of Health Services of Arizona, also resigned this week. Like Heedia, Cunico would appear before legislators for a confirmation hearing. Cunico said she was proud of her work in the department, but made the difficult decision to withdraw her nomination after it was clear that she would not be confirmed either. His resignation occurs two years after the previous selection of Hobbs to lead the Department of Health withdrew his nomination after a heated confirmation audience.
Hoffman said that Cunico had defended the pandemic response of public health officials who changed meetings with legislators, but did not provide details. Hoffman previously sponsored legislation that prohibited state and local agencies promulgating vaccine mandates.
The governor defended Heredia’s response to the fraud crisis and said that both Heredia and Cunico had worked on a variety of initiatives, including improving access to maternal medical care.
“Carmen Heredia helped eliminate a multi -million dollar wave of Medicaid fraud and the related humanitarian consequences that is the previous administration ignored,” Hobbs said in a statement. “His work to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in our health system is a model for the nation, and always assured people who needed help to obtain it.”
She added: “The unprecedented politicization of the Senate of the director’s confirmation process has completed the direction of two health professionals who have made our state government more efficient and more effective.”
Christopher Lomahquahu, research reporter and Roy W. Howard Fellow for Azcir, contributed reports.
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