Progress made in removing Medicaid coverage for dead beneficiaries in Louisiana, auditors say

Date:2025-08-12 01:16:32 Category:US Views:1 Comment:0

BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) — A new report shows the Louisiana Department of Health has made progress in finding and removing Medicaid coverage for dead beneficiaries.

The progress report released Monday was conducted as a follow-up to a November 2017 report and as part of Gov. Jeff Landry’s Louisiana Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) program.

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According to the Louisiana Legislative Auditor, auditors found that LDH made $9.6 million in payments to 1,072 dead Medicaid beneficiaries from February 2019 to March 2025. The report states that the department could utilize third-party sources, including obituaries, the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File, and other states’ vital records databases, to identify deceased beneficiaries.

“LDH is in the process of working with the U.S. Department of Treasury to gain the necessary approvals to receive the Social Security Administration Death Master File. Once this file is obtained, LDH will work to incorporate this data feed as a third-party data source,” Secretary Bruce Greenstein wrote to the legislative auditor.

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