U.S. Senate Aging Committee Chairman Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) recently issued a letter to New York Attorney General (AG) Letitia James demanding an explanation for why her office has failed to crack down on Medicaid fraud and hold fraudsters accountable.
“Since you assumed office, fraud indictments and convictions secured by the [New York Medicaid Fraud Control] Unit have declined dramatically,” Sen. Scott wrote, drawing concerns about the unit’s performance.
New York's MFCU's Failures
According to Sen. Scott, from 2023 to 2025, “New York secured only 53 Medicaid fraud convictions,” a number that far exceeds “the next-lowest comparable state,” which secured 129.
Additionally, the AG’s office recorded fewer than ten criminal fraud indictments in four of the previous five years (2021-2025), ranking last among similarly situated states during that period.
This decline in the number of fraud convictions and lack of accountability for fraudsters had led the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) “to decertify New York’s MFCU and suspend future grant funding.”
The decision by the OIG has left “New York’s seniors and other vulnerable Medicaid beneficiaries at risk,” Sen. Scott argued.
Sen. Scott Says AG James Time In Office Is Correlational
“The timing of this collapse is hard to ignore,” Sen. Scott wrote, citing AG James’ Jan. 2019 inaugural date.
The state’s MFCU’s performance has significantly regressed since then, with fraud convictions dropping from 56 to 14 in just one year, “and patient abuse and neglect convictions [collapsing] from 30 to 4 over that same period,” Sen. Scott affirmed.
New York's MFCU's Steps Towards Recertification
In the letter, Sen. Scott ordered AG James to provide the Committee with “copies of corrective action plans” submitted from her office to the OIG, which include “covering staffing, referrals, case progression, and cooperation,” to receive the MCFU’s full recertification before its deadline.
Sen. Scott also requested explanations and accounting of the Office’s failures, as well as the Unit’s recorded steps to improve performance moving forward.
"New York's Medicaid beneficiaries... deserve an Attorney general that treats their safety as seriously as it treats high-profile civil litigation," Sen. Scott asserted.
