From no allegation of fraud to new anti-fraud measures, DeWine vows to crack down on Medicaid fraud after national headlines
From no allegation of fraud to new anti-fraud measures, DeWine vows to crack down on Medicaid fraud after national headlines
Despite initially downplaying reports of Medicaid fraud, Ohio’s governor announced new fraud-prevention initiatives on Wednesday. While Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s office framed the move as building on the state’s “long-standing efforts to fight fraud, waste, and abuse,” the changes followed a series of Daily Wire stories suggesting potentially $1 billion in Medicaid fraud in Ohio.
The allegations center on home health care services, often with generic names, and the reporter, Luke Rosiak, told Fox Business they largely involve members of the Somali community in Columbus, which is home to the second-largest Somali population in the country. Under the scheme, companies are paid to provide non-medical services, such as cooking and cleaning, to their own family members, which are billed to Medicaid.
According to the series, seven buildings owned by Cordoba Real Estate along East Dublin Granville Road in Columbus house 288 businesses registered with Medicaid. The companies charged taxpayers more than a quarter of a billion dollars between 2018 and 2024, despite being in a city where only 6,273 people 75 or older are on Medicaid.
The new approach appears to contradict the statements made last week.
When first asked to comment on the story, Dan Tierney, a spokesman for DeWine, said, “Upon review of this article, the article does not seem to allege any fraud in the details provided.” That’s despite the Daily Wire touting the article as the first in a series of reports.
However, on Wednesday, he blamed his dismissal on the timing of the question, not his decision to downplay concerns from the start.
“To be clear, you asked for comment after only Part 1 of The Daily Wire series, which did not contain specific fraud allegations,” Tierney told Ohio.News on Wednesday. “Subsequent articles and parts of the series clearly alleged fraud, and Ohio Medicaid has acknowledged that investigations were ongoing.”
Tierney would not elaborate on how widespread the grift might be in the state, pointing to a news release indicating that since the start of 2023, Ohio secured 444 Medicaid fraud indictments, 481 convictions, and 146 civil settlements and judgments totaling $78.4 million in recovered taxpayer money.
“Medicaid fraud has always existed and is unacceptable, which is why Ohio devotes significant resources to fighting fraud,” Tierney said.
He pointed to previous comments from Stephanie O’Grady, deputy director and chief communications officer for the Ohio Department of Medicaid, to Ohio.News indicating that several of the entities mentioned in The Daily Wire series were already under investigation.
“Most of these changes were in development prior to The Daily Wire series,” Tierney added. “Several others were developed as the result of collaborative discussions with the Trump administration on how to better fight fraud, waste, and abuse.”
Interestingly, the governor did not announce the new measures last month, even though he recognized Fraud Prevention Month in Ohio via a proclamation.
“We will continue to innovate and put safeguards in place to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not misused,” the governor said in a release at the time.
The changes announced on Wednesday include a statewide moratorium on new providers, the immediate suspension of payments to high-risk providers, a mandatory GPS requirement for electronic visit verification, or EVV, and mandatory EVV for live-in caregivers.
“Today, we are ready to begin several new initiatives long in development that will enhance this nation-leading work and further protect taxpayer funds from those trying to defraud the State,” DeWine said in a release.
Ohio takes all Medicaid fraud allegations seriously and will continue to work with the Trump Administration to proceed with several new fraud, waste, and abuse reforms immediately. Ohio has been a national leader in catching and prosecuting Medicaid fraud thanks to a strong… pic.twitter.com/rvsoRrbBSl
— Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) May 13, 2026
Officials plan to ask the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for a six-month moratorium that would prevent new home health and hospice businesses from becoming Medicaid providers. They contend the move will help state officials “assess existing providers to help remove those at high risk for having committed fraud.”
In a gaggle with reporters on Wednesday, Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, expressed frustration that DeWine has vetoed measures to increase oversight of Medicaid, saying the changes announced on Wednesday are a “little bit late, quite frankly.”
“Over the last several operating budgets, probably dating back to 2019 even, I feel like in every budget we passed something to place more oversight over Medicaid, to either audit the Medicaid department, through the state auditor’s office, of all people, to actually bring in a third party and to use AI to determine who should be on it or who should be off of it, to a variety of other measures that the governor has vetoed in every single operating budget, save for one, this most recent one,” McColley told reporters.
“Throughout the entire course of time, we’ve received tremendous resistance from the Department of Medicaid when the legislature has tried to step in and try to offer its own oversight over the Department of Medicaid,” McColley, who is running for lieutenant governor as Ramaswamy’s running mate, added. “We received particular resistance from the director of Medicaid at that time, who is … no longer the director of Medicaid. It’s been incredibly frustrating to say the least. And I think I speak on behalf of my entire caucus when I say that, and certainly there need to be measures put in place, I think that’s obvious at this point.”
A spokesman for Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, who is resigning next month, did not respond to requests for comment on the fraud allegations.
The allegations will no doubt spill over into the upcoming gubernatorial race.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is vowing to crack down on fraud in Ohio following reports of rampant fraud in the state. Conversely, Democrat Amy Acton, the former director of the Ohio Department of Health from 2019 to 2020, vowed to crack down on “waste, fraud, and abuse,” without mentioning that she served in DeWine’s administration.
Good. This is a problem.
Ohio #Medicaid needs greater checks & balances. There are solutions available & we need leaders willing to embrace them.https://t.co/i6YpCsYoJq
— Greg R. Lawson (@BuckeyeInstGreg) May 12, 2026
