Moms Allegedly Paid $1,500 Per Child to Fake Autism Diagnoses in Minnesota Fraud Scheme
Mothers in Minnesota were allegedly bribed roughly $1,500 per child to falsely claim their kids had autism, a scheme that saddled innocent children with medical diagnoses they never needed and drained hundreds of millions from taxpayer-funded programs.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz revealed the disturbing details during an appearance alongside President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, crediting the administration’s anti-fraud task force and independent journalism for blowing the lid off what appears to be one of the largest Medicaid fraud operations in state history.
“Fraud doesn’t just steal our money. Fraud steals people’s lives and it also steals our trust as a nation, and that is devastating to any country,” Oz said.
The numbers are staggering. Minnesota’s autism program ballooned from about $3 million in 2018 to nearly $400 million in recent years. Prosecutor Joe Thompson has said the state’s 14 high-risk programs cost $18 billion since 2018, and more than half of that amount may be fraudulent.
When CMS examined providers operating in those flagged programs, roughly a third could not be validated.
“One in three shouldn’t have been doing that job,” Oz said.
Oz described a scheme with two sets of victims. Children wrongly labeled autistic now carry that diagnosis on their records going forward, potentially affecting their futures in ways their families never anticipated. Meanwhile, mothers of children who actually need autism services find themselves unable to afford care because fraudsters have depleted the system.
The Trump administration has made rooting out this kind of waste a priority. The president appointed Vance to lead a Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, which held its first meeting at the White House earlier this year. The effort brought together Cabinet secretaries along with Justice Department and Treasury officials.