The state's largest managed care provider for Arkansans with disabilities has agreed to pay almost $8 million in civil penalties and reimbursement to the Arkansas Medicaid program over how it reported expenses.
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge announced Tuesday the settlement between the state and Empower Healthcare Solutions LLC. The settlement was based on a joint investigation conducted by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the attorney general's office and the inspector general's office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The investigation was initiated after the state's Department of Human Services and the Arkansas Medicaid inspector general raised questions concerning how Empower was reporting expenses in 2020.
The settlement documents provided to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Tuesday stated that the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit did not identify any overpayments, misclassifications or other violations that were sufficient to support credible evidence of fraud or false claims with regard to Empower Healthcare.
Empower Healthcare early last month received a notice of sanctions from the state Medicaid inspector general's office, which notified the company that it was subject to a fraud investigation and that some Medicaid payments would be suspended.
The notice said the state Office of Medicaid Inspector General "received complaints against Empower and performed an investigation regarding alleged fraudulent payments made by Empower to certain...
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