Decades-Old Technology Plagues California Medicaid Program

In the shadow of Silicon Valley, the hub of the world’s digital revolution, California officials still submit their records to the feds justifying billions in Medicaid spending the old-fashioned way: on paper. Stacks and stacks of it. Stuck with decades-old technology, the nation’s largest Medicaid program forces federal officials to sift through thousands of documents by hand rather than sending electronic files. That’s one of the critical findings in a Sept. 5 report from the federal government’s chief watchdog citing inefficient and lax oversight of Medicaid nationwide.