One out of every four waivers nationally to allow doctors and clinics excluded from billing Medicaid for past misdeeds has been granted to the state of New Mexico. The state is a virtual wasteland for care providers because only one of its 33 counties has enough medical options, according to a federal evaluation. Health Department officials say that shortage led them to hire two convicted felons to head regional public health offices, where they supervise and administer care to the most impoverished residents of one of the poorest states in the country. The report also revealed that the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has no record of ever rejecting any request from a state to reinstate Medicaid billing privileges to providers who’d been stripped of that privilege for ethical misdeeds.
