PHOENIX — There are more than 100 provider names on the list of providers suspended by AHCCCS on Monday for allegations of wrongdoing.
State officials said some of those companies recruit and transport Native Americans in search of drug and alcohol rehab, and then never give them those services.
Sometimes they leave them stranded with no way home, while the providers allegedly raked in hundreds of millions of dollars.
The state suspended more than 100 of those providers from collecting AHCCCS payments on Monday. The AHCCCS, or the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, is Arizona's Medicaid agency that offers health care programs to serve Arizona residents.
12News found a mix of those suspended from around the Valley. Some owned more than one company, but one name kept coming back up; a company called ProMD Solutions.
That company is listed on the Arizona Corporation Commission website as being a statutory agent in 10 companies on the suspended list.
A statutory agent accepts legal documents for a corporation.
According to ProMD’s website, they do medical billing and they’re based in Irvine, California.
But what happens when look you click the street view for their address, it’s a strip mall in Irvine. The address is also listed as a third-party post office.
And on some of the company registrations, ProMD lists an address in Sedona. That address turns out to be a Staples in another strip mall.
It’s something Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes hinted at during Tuesday’s press conference.
"Some of these scammers didn’t even bill AHCCCS for people they were in contact with," Mayes said. "They simply purchased lists of names and dates of birth of people and used those to bill AHCCCS.”
Mayes said billing under the specific Native American AHCCCS code went sky high in recent years, and they don’t think it’s all real.
In 2019, it was $53 million. In 2020, the total was $132 million. In 2021, providers billed $291 million.
And in 2022, it was an astronomical $668 million dollars.
The state said some of the billing is legit, but not all of it.
12News tried contacting the owner of Pro-MD Solutions, but couldn’t find him.
Only one provider said they know him and said he only did billing. That provider also said he didn’t know he was on the AHCCCS suspension list.
RELATED: Police investigating Indigenous people getting 'recruited' to check into Phoenix rehab centers
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