Medicaid Fraud Control Unit

In his first weeks in office, Attorney General Schneiderman launched a new initiative – at no cost to taxpayers – to bolster his office's award-winning Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (“MFCU”) with dozens of additional prosecutors, investigators and auditors.

The MFCU, the largest unit within the Attorney General’s Criminal Division, is the centerpiece of New York’s effort to investigate, penalize, and prosecute individuals and companies responsible for improper or fraudulent Medicaid billing schemes. A revenue-generating agency that recovers taxpayer money through successful fraud prosecutions, the MFCU utilizes a team-based approach to identify and investigate frauds committed by hospitals, nursing homes, pharmacies, doctors, dentists, nurses, and other health care entities billing the Medicaid Program.

Medicaid Fraud Control Unit targets, among other things, large-scale frauds involving overbilling, kickbacks, substandard drugs and medical equipment, and “Medicaid mills” run by organized criminals. It also handles numerous cases in order to safeguard elderly and disabled New Yorkers from abuse and neglect in nursing homes and other health care facilities.

Attorney General Schneiderman’s new enhancement to the MFCU - the addition of dozens of new prosecutors, investigators, and auditors devoted to cracking down on Medicaid fraud – is funded by using money the agency itself recovers, as well as a federal program which will provide the unit with 3:1 matching funds. Through the federal program, Schneiderman will receive enough funds to vastly bolster the capabilities of the MFCU, without costing state taxpayers a dime.  

In previous years, there has been a direct relationship between the number of prosecutors in the MFCU and the number of Medicaid fraud recoveries the unit has obtained, meaning the enhanced unit could recover millions more to the taxpayers of New York State.