State Auditor Hector Balderas says a federal Medicaid agency isn't planning to review a decision by Gov. Susana Martinez's administration last year to freeze payments to mental health providers because of alleged fraud and overbillings.
In a letter Thursday to a legislative panel, Balderas said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services informed him in March it decided not to review state findings of "credible allegations of fraud" against more than a dozen providers.
He said the federal agency told him it "gives great weight" that the attorney general's Medicaid fraud unit accepted the mental health provider cases and continues to investigate them.
Balderas had forwarded to the federal agency an audit by his office that concluded the Human Services Department had improperly handled fraud allegations against the providers.
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