The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Medicaid" ...
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Health Care Hustle
It is one of the biggest and most overlooked factors in the rising cost of health care. According to government estimates, fraud in programs like Medicare and Medicaid costs taxpayers $80 billion a year, with some estimates as high as twice that amount. Doctors, pharmacists, home health care providers, and even patients are hustling the system. Who's paying the tab? You Are.
Tags: Health care; fraud; Medicare; Medicaid; taxpayers; government authorities; patients
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Denticaid: Medicaid Dental Abuse in Texas
A nearly two-year-long probe of Medicaid dentistry by WFAA’s Byron Harris discovered what authorities now say is a system of corporate fraud, propelled by Wall Street. News 8 found taxpayer money has gone to finance lavish lifestyles of dentists who have billed the government for unnecessary orthodontics and other procedures that, in many instances, harmed children. WFAA also uncovered a network of Medicaid recruiters who, for at least one clinic, lured children into a van with cash and food, had them sign their parents' names on treatment forms, then performed extensive and unnecessary work on their teeth without their parents’ permission. The FBI is currently investigating this and other Medicaid fraud schemes brought to light by WFAA's reporting.
Tags: Medicaid; dental health; fraud; corruption
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Methadone and the Politics of Pain
Since 2003, at least 2,173 people have fatally overdosed on methadone, a narcotic painkiller that is both cheap and unpredictable. Washington steers people with state-subsidized healthcare -- most notably, Medicaid patients -- toward the drug in order to save money.
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Crooked Teeth
The WFAA-TV investigative series, "Crooked Teeth," reveals a troubling lack of state and federal oversight of the Texas Medicaid orthodontic program, which is designed to help poor children with severely misaligned teeth. The lack of oversight has allowed Texas dentists and their corporations to exploit the health care bureaucracy and garner hundreds of millions of dollars. "Crooked Teeth" also raises questions about other Medicaid reimbursements nationally, including troubling payment policies by one of the nation's largest government contractors.
Tags: orthodontics; Medicaid; teeth; Texas; health care
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Home Health Care Fraud
Exposing how the health care company Maxim Healthcare overbilled their patients, costing the U.S. taxpayers thousands of dollars. Through a whistleblower prosecutors were able to build a case against the firm, resulting in the largest home health care fraud fine ever.
Tags: health care; fraud; maxim health care; medicare; medicaid; whistleblower; fine; overbilling
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Methadone and the Politics of Pain
The Seattle Times has found that since 2003, at least 2,173 people in Washington have fatally overdosed on methadone, a narcotic that is both cheap and unpredictable. More so, Medicaid recipients account for about 8% of Washington's adult population but 48% of the methadone deaths.
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Home or Nursing Home: America's Empty Promise to Give the Elderly and Disabled a Choice
"A new legal right gives the elderly and young people with disabilities in the Medicaid program the right to get their long-term health care at home, not in a nursing home. But the NPR investigation found that thise new right to choose one's care at home is largely denied to those who want it."
Tags: nursing home; elder care; disabled; long-term care; medical care; community-based care; Department of Health and Human Services; American with Disabilities Act; Olmstead Decision
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Behind the Label
This documentary exposes an unregulated system that financially rewards the overmedication of children with antipsychotic drugs. "Some states, doctors, agencies and even certain foster parents profit at the expense of children's health - driven by complicated state funding formulas and the influence of the pharmaceutical industry."
Tags: children; pharmaceuticals; antipsychotic drugs; prescriptions; adolescents; Medicaid;
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Compromised Care
Using confidential documents, computer datasets and gripping interviews, the reporters were able to expose widespread violence and abuse in the Illinois nursing homes and psychiatric hospitals that serve the poor.
Tags: Medicaid; elderly; abuse; psychiatric hospitals; sexual assault
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Money Pit/ Money Maker: Developmental Centers and the Medicaid Match
The series found that New York has kept open poorly run institutions for the developmentally disabled because it's Medicaid reimbursement rate is so lucrative. Residents are kept in locked beds in prison-like conditions though most are not convicted criminals.
Tags: disabled; institutions; developmentally disabled; locked beds; Medicaid