BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Medicaid in Louisiana, one of the state’s largest expenses, provides healthcare for more than 1.6 million people. Typically, when a beneficiary dies, they are removed from the Medicaid rolls. However, from February 2019 to March 2025, the state paid $9.6 million for 1,072 people who were deceased.

The Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Office uncovered this issue by cross-referencing the federal Social Security database.

“If someone moves out of state and dies, that isn’t necessarily in Louisiana’s vital records,” Chris Magee said. “Also, people who died in another state but didn’t move there might not be in Louisiana’s records. Our philosophy is to use as many datasets as possible.”

So why wasn’t the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) doing the same? Magee note

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