Medicaid Fraud

Oklahoma recently enacted the Oklahoma Medicaid False Claims Act, which became effective on November 1, 2007, and prohibits the submission of false claims to the State of Oklahoma for payment. This new law is modeled after the federal False Claims Act and its intended purpose is to recoup money for the State of Oklahoma that has been paid out on the basis of false claims for payment.

The Oklahoma False Claims Act has the potential to be used in tandem with the federal False Claims Act by patients, employees and others to combat fraudulent billing practices used by some medical providers.

Examples of Medicaid fraud would include:

• Billing Medicaid for services that were not provided
• Billing Medicaid for services or equipment that are different from the actual equipment or services that were provided
• Other fraudulent billing practices