Phillips & Cohen attorney Emily Stabile advocates for preserving the whistleblower provisions of the Alaska Mediaid False Claims Act in her op-ed for the Juneau Empire. The provisions are due to expire in July 2019.
The state legislature is leaving much-needed money on the table and hurting the state’s efforts to fight health care fraud by failing to stop the automatic repeal of the whistleblower provisions in Alaska’s three-year-old Medicaid fraud law.
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Yet the legislature has taken no action to revoke the automatic repeal of the whistleblower provisions that were part of the state statute when it was enacted. Unless the state legislature takes steps to repeal the statutory “sunset” on the whistleblower provisions before the close of the legislative session, these provisions will cease to be effective as of July 1 this year.
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At a time when Alaska faces a $1.6 billion budget deficit and severe funding cuts in public schools, health care and other important programs, the state legislature should be looking for additional ways to stop fraud that is costing taxpayers money.
Revoking the repeal of the whistleblower provisions of the state false claims law would be a good, no-cost way to start.
Read “Stop the repeal of important tool to fight Medicaid fraud,” on Juneau Empire‘s website.