Evidence is incomplete or still developing; a future update may resolve it. Learn more in Methodology.
CMS has notified Minnesota officials and suspended Medicaid payments to the 14 flagged programs pending audit verification of claims, based on a determination of substantial noncompliance with federal requirements.
Available evidence confirms that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are deferring or holding back Medicaid payments tied to 14 Minnesota Medicaid service categories that the state itself has designated as “high‑risk” for fraud, waste and abuse, and that this is being done through intensified audits and claim-by-claim review rather than as a blanket shutdown of all Medicaid funding to those services. A FOX 9 report summarizing a January 6, 2026 CMS letter from Administrator Mehmet Oz to Governor Tim Walz states CMS will “defer payments for the 14 programs that the state itself identified as rife with fraud” while audits verify what is legitimate, which aligns with most of the claim, but the letter text itself is not publicly available. Legal and policy analysis on the Minnesota Medicaid fraud situation (e.g., National Law Review) describes federal scrutiny and the identification of 14 “high‑risk” services but does not independently corroborate that CMS has formally found the Minnesota Medicaid agency in “substantial noncompliance with Federal requirements,” a specific regulatory term. Because the purported CMS determination of “substantial noncompliance” and the exact scope and legal framing of the payment action cannot be confirmed from primary CMS or HHS documents, the statement cannot be verified as fully accurate at this time. The verdict is Unclear because secondary reporting supports payment deferrals to 14 high‑risk programs and their fraud‑risk designation, but there is no accessible primary evidence confirming a formal CMS finding of “substantial noncompliance with federal requirements” or the precise nature of the payment pause as described.