BATON ROUGE- Health and Hospitals Secretary Kathy Kliebert says her agency thinks it has finally found a way to fix oversight problems with a program that provides non-emergency medical transportation to Medicaid recipients.
    
The state spends $18 million annually on the services. But legislative audits have repeatedly listed lax oversight that could result in improper services.
    
Kliebert told the Legislative Audit Advisory Council on Thursday that the five private insurance companies managing the health care of more than 1 million Medicaid recipients have taken over the medical transportation program.
    
Kliebert says she believes that will provide the needed oversight for the program. Medicaid staff, she says, will monitor the insurance companies' efforts.
    
The program provides Medicaid recipients with transportation to and from doctors' offices, out-patient clinics and other medical service providers.