(The Center Square) – The House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee launched in the wake of suspected fraud within government programs in Minnesota recently examined the state’s Non Emergency Medical Transport program.
A report presented during the hearing to indicated NEMT services dropped in 2025, decreasing by hundreds of thousands of rides billed for.
Michael Weidner, with the Minnesota Paratransit Providers Association, spoke about a new Department of Human Services report on NEMT services being provided, stating that there was a 62% year-over-year decrease in services provided after those government-funded services were added to the list of 14 high risk fraud programs.
When asked about the year-over-year decrease, John Connolly with DHS said it can’t determine if the decrease was due to the higher scrutiny programs were receiving.
He also said drivers have a full calendar year to bill the state for rides given, so there could be rides from 2025 that have yet to be billed to the state.
Connolly could not provide a percentage of rides that have been billed after the ending of a calendar from past years.
“This is infuriating, this is beyond infuriating,” Rep. Walter Hudson, R-Albertville, said following the testimony. “You can see [in the report] that it starts to fall off in April of last year and the speculative claim is that people are taking their time to bill. Oh, okay. Can’t afford $30 bucks per month per vehicle to have cameras and GPS, margins just doesn’t make it possible, but I can wait six months to bill the state for my services. That makes a lot of sense,” Hudson said.
He went on to emphasize that the difference in rides year-over year was more than 400,000 that may not have been billed for yet.
“The absurdity, and it’s an insult to Minnesota’s collective intelligence to accept that premise, and I for one am not going to submit to it,” Hudson said.
The NEMT program also presents challenges to detecting and preventing fraud. “There’s just no easy way to verify that the trip was actually provided and that there was a corresponding medical appointment,” James Clark, inspector general with DHS said, pointing to a volume of more than 7 million claims for services every year.
By the end of May, DHS plans to visit all Minnesota NEMT sites in person, Clark said.
