South Carolina is shelling out millions of dollars in Medicaid payments to people who aren’t eligible, in part because of outmoded technology including paper files, a state official said Wednesday.
Tony Keck, head of the state Department of Health and Human Services, wants to implement a surgical-style checklist to cut down on errors,
The State newspaper reported.
In 2010, his agency paid $406 million to people who were not eligible, the newspaper said.
“With some of the errors that we are seeing, they are very straightforward. I think following a checklist approach like hospitals are doing now in surgery to make sure don’t cut off the wrong limb or anything else — if they can do it in surgery, we can certainly do it in eligibility,” Keck told a state Senate subcommittee.
Keck also said that moving to an electronic records system would help.
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