{"id":40990,"date":"2026-07-29T17:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T17:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/?p=40990"},"modified":"2026-07-29T17:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T17:19:09","slug":"comptroller-audit-finds-nyc-schools-failed-to-collect-up-to-431-million-in-medicaid-reimbursements-for-special-education-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/archives\/40990","title":{"rendered":"Comptroller audit finds NYC schools failed to collect up to $431 million in Medicaid reimbursements for special education services"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>NEWYORK: A\u00a0new audit\u00a0by the Office of Comptroller Mark Levine found New York City Public Schools (NYCPS)\u00a0failed to\u00a0collect\u00a0as much as $431.6\u00a0million in Medicaid reimbursements\u00a0over three fiscal years\u00a0for\u00a0a host of services for students\u00a0with disabilities.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In many cases, auditors found\u00a0NYCPS did not claim\u00a0hundreds of millions of dollars in reimbursements,\u00a0and\u00a0in many\u00a0cases\u00a0it\u00a0did not\u00a0appear to\u00a0document mandatory services provided to these\u00a0students.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFailing\u00a0to collect Medicaid reimbursements the\u00a0City\u00a0is entitled to is more than a fiscal problem \u2014 it raises serious questions about whether government is operating as effectively as New Yorkers need it to,\u201d said<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>City Comptroller Mark Levine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen NYCPS cannot reliably claim federal dollars for services it already provides, and cannot consistently document whether mandated services were delivered, students, families, and taxpayers all lose. The City must strengthen these systems, improve accountability, and ensure every eligible dollar is\u00a0claimed\u00a0and every required service is tracked.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0audit released today follows a 2021 examination of\u00a0NYCPS\u2019 efforts to seek eligible reimbursements on\u00a0services\u00a0rendered.\u00a0NYCPS can seek Medicaid\u00a0reimbursements\u00a0for up to 10 services it provides to students with\u00a0Individualized\u00a0Education\u00a0Programs\u00a0(IEPs).<\/p>\n<p>Past audits have found\u00a0the system only sought\u00a0payment\u00a0for some of the\u00a0Occupational Therapy (OT), Physical Therapy (PT), and Speech Therapy (ST)\u00a0services it provided.\u00a0The latest audit found NYCPS still\u00a0failed\u00a0to\u00a0seek reimbursement for any of the other seven Medicaid-eligible services.<\/p>\n<p>NYCPS successfully\u00a0claimed less than half\u00a0of the total\u00a0services\u00a0it intended to claim\u00a0reimbursement from Medicaid for\u00a0over the three-year fiscal period.<\/p>\n<p>Under Medicaid rules, failure to meet just one documentation\u00a0requirement\u00a0prevents\u00a0a claim of reimbursement.\u00a0NYCPS also lacks\u00a0any\u00a0record\u00a0of\u00a0providing\u00a016.2%\u00a0of\u00a0OT,\u00a0PT\u00a0or\u00a0ST\u00a0services\u00a0required\u00a0in IEPs.\u00a0Auditors concluded that either those mandated services for students with\u00a0IEPs\u00a0were not performed or\u00a0the documentation\u00a0to track their results was not kept.<\/p>\n<p>Auditors found that NYCPS\u00a0failed to\u00a0claim\u00a0as much as $431.6 million in\u00a0reimbursements, including:\u00a0$273.4 million\u00a0in OT, PT and ST services\u00a0delivered\u00a0to\u00a0Pre-K\u00a0to 12th\u00a0grade\u00a0students; $132.8 million\u00a0in which mandated services that may have been provided lacked documentation; $25.4 million<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>in unclaimed\u00a0services\u00a0delivered\u00a0across\u00a0medical, OT, PT and ST\u00a0evaluations and reevaluations, as well as\u00a0psychological\u00a0counseling<\/p>\n<p>Because NYCPS does not or could not provide the necessary information, auditors were unable to\u00a0determine\u00a0how much the system may have been reimbursed for Special Transportation and Skilled Nursing services.<\/p>\n<p>Only three of the 25 corrective recommendations NYCPS agreed to\u00a0in 2021\u00a0were\u00a0fully\u00a0implemented, and another eight were partially implemented across Fiscal Years 2023, 2024, and 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEWYORK: A\u00a0new audit\u00a0by the Office of Comptroller Mark Levine found New York City Public Schools (NYCPS)\u00a0failed to\u00a0collect\u00a0as much as $431.6\u00a0million in Medicaid reimbursements\u00a0over three fiscal years\u00a0for\u00a0a host of services for students\u00a0with disabilities. In many cases, auditors found\u00a0NYCPS did not claim\u00a0hundreds of millions of dollars in reimbursements,\u00a0and\u00a0in many\u00a0cases\u00a0it\u00a0did not\u00a0appear to\u00a0document mandatory services provided to these\u00a0students. \u201cFailing\u00a0to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":40153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1469,31,1378],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-york","category-news","category-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40991,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40990\/revisions\/40991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}