In just five years, Medicaid spending on autism therapy in North Carolina has skyrocketed from roughly $1.4 million to $660 million—a staggering 47,000 percent increase that defies any reasonable explanation rooted in population growth or genuine medical need. State Auditor Dave Boliek, the top watchdog for taxpayer dollars in the Tar Heel State, has rightly flagged this as a prime candidate for waste, fraud, and abuse. While applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy provides real help to children on the spectrum, this kind of exponential billing surge screams for rigorous scrutiny, not blank-check acceptance.
Boliek didn’t mince words in highlighting the anomaly. “Those are vital services to folks and individuals that need that therapy,” he told Fox News. But when billings explode from $1.4 million to more than $660 million annually in five years, “that begs an audit.”