SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — After suspending 345,000 disability checks because of fraud concerns, California officials on Thursday confirmed nearly all of those suspected claims were associated with criminals trying to trick the state into paying them.
The Employment Development Department announced earlier this month that they had halted payments on those 345,000 disability claims associated with 27,000 suspicious doctors. On Thursday, the department announced it had verified the identity of just 485 of those doctors — meaning about 98% of them are likely fraudulent.
“The few providers that were not fraud — but instead victims of identity theft — are completing verification along with their patients to then resume certifying claims,” the department said in a news release.
The department said most of the state’s disability claims were unaffected by the scam as the state continues to pay about $150 million in benefits each week. But it said a small number of legitimate claimants have had their payments frozen.
The Employment Development Department has been plagued by fraud since the start of the pandemic, mostly in unemployment benefits. The state paid out roughly $20 billion in fraudulent claims since March 2020, or 11% of the $180 billion in claims paid since then.
The department could not say how much money…
