Unnecessary Medical Tests Costing Taxpayers Millions

North Carolina taxpayers are spending millions of dollars every year for X-rays, CAT Scans and MRI’s that may not be necessary.

That raises questions about how closely the state has been watching your tax dollars and now even the governor says the system needs to change.

Patrick Bassett told Channel 9 that he went from doctor to doctor to get new prescriptions for painkillers he was addicted to and almost every new doctor would order a new scan.

At one point Patrick told us he was getting a new X-ray almost every month even though he had no job and no insurance.

Bassett said that either the doctor got stuck with the bill or the state paid for it.

The state means Medicaid, the taxpayer funded insurance program, and the stories of fraud in the system are staggering.

Channel 9 has learned that 170 Medicaid patients in North Carolina each had more than 50 scans in just two years.

Five of them had more than 100 and one patient had 318.

And taxpayers paid for every one of them totaling $2.8 million.

Lanier Cansler, secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services, who oversees the Medicaid department, tells us that part of the problem is a state computer system that doesn’t notice when the same patient gets the same scans over and over again.

“Our technology was designed to pay bills, not to monitor what the providers were doing. The focus was on the services and funding the services,” Cansler said.

And another problem is that some doctors, who have to pay for their expensive equipment, don’t ask enough questions.

Channel 9 asked Bassett, “Do doctors ever question whether you need another scan?”

His response was “No. I’ve never had one question it.”

Now even Gov. Bev Perdue is talking about the problem. “They file claims and nobody asks any questions.”

Channel 9 has learned that the state has signed a contract with a company called Med Solutions that will start screening requests for scans on Medicaid patients before taxpayers get stuck with the bill for tests they have paid for too many times already.

Channel 9 asked Cansler, “Bottom line, how much could we be saving as taxpayers?”

All I can say is, we know from some of the examples I’ve cited that there are areas where we are going to save money. I just don't know how much yet,” Cansler said.

Med Solutions is already working with five other states to manage their Medicaid payments.

They claim to have saved $100 million in Texas but the state estimates the number could be closer to $50 million over two years in North Carolina.