Lawmakers Withdraw Plan for County Medicaid Fraud Unit

By Thomas J. Prohaska

Niagara County is planning to add a Medicaid fraud detection unit to its Social Services Department, but the County Legislature did not act on the program Tuesday.

A resolution to set up the unit was withdrawn from the Legislature agenda, with Legislator Danny W. Sklarski, chairman of the Community Services Committee, calling it “premature.”

Sklarski, D-Town of Niagara, said the county needs to answer several questions, ranging from cost, to staffing levels to who gets any money recovered. He said he expects the item to return to the agenda in four weeks.

Sklarski said the state has a computer software program that can be applied to analysis of Medicaid rolls. “The program’s going to identify the points of auditing need,” he said. It will flag the heaviest Medicaid users and take a look at their claims history to see if there’s a need for more in-depth probing.

Sklarski said the case of Dan D. Dietrich, a Social Services worker currently facing a flock of felony charges accusing him of costing the county some $400,000 by not bothering to review eligibility of Medicaid clients, played no role in the county’s desire to set up a fraud unit.

The Legislature voted in December to cut the county’s welfare fraud unit in half, but Majority Leader Malcolm A. Needler, R-North Tonawanda, argued that was justified because the welfare fraud had done such a good job that the county “had squeezed as much out of it as we could.”

While welfare fraud prosecutions have dried up, Needler said Medicaid fraud is an area that needs to be attacked. He said Rockland County, whose population is only slightly larger than Niagara County’s, recovered about $13 million with its Medicaid fraud unit.

“We hope there won’t be any,” Sklarski said, but he conceded those hopes may not be fulfilled.

Needler said he wasn’t sure if the county or the state would spearhead recovery efforts in fraud cases. The county pays a 25 percent share of all Medicaid claims.

In other action, the lawmakers elected county Conservative Party Chairman James M. Sobczyk of Pendleton as Legislature clerk, replacing Michael P. Carney, who started Monday as deputy county treasurer.

The Legislature passed a resolution asking Congress to spend $210,000 on an effort to clean up debris and pollution in Cayuga Creek in Niagara Falls. Also passed was a resolution urging the state to increase funding to localities for road and bridge maintenance.

The lawmakers awarded a $646,450 contract to Tunney Electric of Clarence to replace the fire alarm, security and emergency generator systems at Niagara County Community College. Also, the county accepted an extra $100,828 in state reimbursements for snow plowing on state roads last winter.

The Legislature gave permission for the towns of Wheatfield and Royalton, to hold July 4 celebrations, including fireworks, in county parks in those towns.

Former Lewiston town councilwoman Paulette Glasgow was appointed to the county Planning Board, replacing Merton S. Marshall, who died Feb. 12.

e-mail: tprohaska@buffnews.com