Department of Health

Inappropriate Payments for Vision Care Services Claimed by Dr. Horowitz (Follow-Up)

Kenneth Horowitz, OD, is an optometrist from Staten Island who received about $370,000 from Medicaid during the five-year period ended September 30, 2008. In audit report 2008-S-166, we determined that Dr. Horowitz routinely overbilled Medicaid when the patients were also eligible for Medicare, and routinely overbilled for the cost of his transportation to a nursing home where most of his patients lived. We concluded that about $239,500 of the $370,000 in Medicaid payments (65 percent) received by Dr. Horowitz may have been inappropriate. We recommended that the Department of Health investigate these payments and make all appropriate recoveries. When we followed up on these matters with Department officials, we found they have made some progress in correcting the problems we identified in our initial report but improvements are still needed.

For a complete copy of Report 2010-F-47 click here.