More than 50 patient transportation companies across New York, including five on Long Island, used fake billing schemes to steal from Medicaid and exploit vulnerable patients, the state attorney general said yesterday.

"We have uncovered a major source of fraud amongst the transportation companies," Attorney General Letitia James said at a news conference at her lower Manhattan office. "Companies are billing Medicaid for fake rides and tolls, costing New York taxpayers tens of millions of dollars every year, money that should be used to fund health care for the most vulnerable New Yorkers."

Nicholas Spangler reports in NEWSDAY that James said her office had sent cease-and-desist notices to 54 companies warning of financial penalties and prison time if they continue their alleged overcharging of Medicaid for fraudulent services. Her press office declined to name the companies or to say publicly why they were not releasing the company names.

Medicaid, which provides free health insurance for about 7.5 million New York children and adults from low-income families with $37 billion in state funding, also reimburses businesses for transporting patients to and from covered medical services.

Auditors and prosecutors focus on transportation because it is one of the fastest growing Medicaid service categories, New York's Medicaid Inspector General wrote in a 2022 report.

Not all cases of suspected fraud result in criminal prosecution, and James said her office had cut transportation fraud simply by investigating it. Between 2019 and 2023, according to a chart prepared by her office that was displayed at the news conference, payment by Medicaid for tolls in New York dropped abruptly from more than $20 million to just over $10 million.

***

A pedestrian was struck by two vehicles while crossing the street at the intersection of Main Street and Nugent Street in Southampton Village late Tuesday afternoon and is in critical condition but expected to survive, according to Southampton Village Police. As reported on 27east.com, the woman was crossing the street between CVS and the Golden Pear when a driver turning right didn’t see her because of the glare of the descending sun, police said. The driver’s vehicle hit her and knocked her down in the road, and then another car that was coming off Hampton Road headed west, also blinded by the glare, ran her over, police said.

The woman was transported to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital by a Southampton Village Volunteer Ambulance crew and then transferred to Stony Brook University Hospital. Both cars were impounded for safety checks, but no charges have been filed against either driver.

***

This coming Saturday, Jan. 11, the Heart of Riverhead Civic Association begins 2025 with two events at the Riverhead Free Library. At 10:30 a.m., they’ll hold their first civic meeting of the year, talking about what deserves the civic’s attention through the next 12 months. From 1 to 2:30 p.m., they’ll host their third Annual Volunteer Expo in advance of the Martin Luther King, Jr Day of Service, with info on volunteer programs involving gardening, helping at the animal shelter, at art and music events, or lending a needed hand in neighbors’ lives. All are welcome to both events this coming Saturday at Riverhead Free Library, 330 Court Street in Riverhead, New York.

***

Suffolk County taxpayers could be on the hook for $60 million in a migrant class-action lawsuit for holding on to illegal immigrants until the feds could show up and ship them out of the country, officials said yesterday. Carl Campanile and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon report in THE NY POST that a federal judge ruled that the county sheriff’s office in Suffolk acted on its own when it held undocumented immigrants for deportation proceedings — because New York State law doesn’t allow local cops to do so. Moreover,...