Ohio Medicaid Fraud Crackdown Leaves Disabled Without
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- Mike DeWine placed a six-month moratorium on new home care providers in May after a Daily Wire investigation suggested caregivers were "getting paid to hang out with their own families," and is expected to sign a bill tightening Medicaid-funded care rules.
- Ohio's House Bill 795, folded into a Senate food stamps and cybersecurity bill, mandates electronic visit verification with virtual clock-in/-out and real-time GPS tracking of providers' locations; live-in family caregivers are exempt from tracking but face new oversight mechanisms.
- CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz has toured Florida, California, and Ohio with a camera crew spotlighting Medicaid fraud and told states they must revalidate all providers—a process the article says caused months of disruption in Minnesota.
- Disability advocates including Disability Rights Ohio and Caring Across Generations warned the bill does nothing to address the provider shortage; the national median home care wage was $16.78/hour in 2024, and one advocate compared competing for caregivers to "competing with Chipotle."
- Jennifer Kucera, who has spinal muscular atrophy, said she was punched and sexually assaulted in a previous Ohio nursing home and testified she would "rather die in my own bed than ever go back to a nursing home again."
- Emily Lark, who quit teaching to become a $15/hour personal care attendant for her 7-year-old daughter Anika, found out about a surprise amendment banning family caregivers from being paid while unloading her daughter's wheelchair to testify at the Statehouse on June 3.
- Justin Martin, a 30-year-old Columbus-area teacher with cerebral palsy, was left with zero caregivers last fall after a provider defrauded him; he now relies on one part-time provider Monday through Wednesday, with his parents covering the remaining days.
Why it matters: The bill creates GPS tracking and electronic visit verification mandates but no mechanism to fix the provider shortage driving instability, and the moratorium has no replacement plan if caregivers quit during the six-month freeze. With Ohio disability advocates projecting institutionalization for clients like Kucera, the state is moving from a home-and-community-based care model back toward the nursing homes that federal law was designed to move people out of.
