State investigators snuffed out more Medicaid fraud in Miami-Dade this week: They swept 12 medical equipment providers suspected of bilking the state healthcare program for low-income people by billing for oxygen concentrators that are not medically needed.

Investigators also visited more than 120 Medicaid patients, some of whom may have received kickbacks from medical equipment suppliers for ordering their products.

Some cases will be turned over to the state attorney general's office for criminal investigation, officials said at a Miami-Dade press conference Thursday.

Holly Benson, secretary for the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, said fraudulent billing for oxygen concentrators is the latest scam ailing Medicaid, which spent $90 million on medical equipment in fiscal 2007-08. About 25 percent of that spending, funded by state and federal taxes, was in Miami-Dade.

''Every day we hear stories of Medicaid fraud and all the money that is stolen from our state,'' said Benson, who was joined by state Rep. Marcelo Llorente and other officials.

Medicaid has paid for medical equipment such as oxygen concentrators, feeding kits and electric wheelchairs and later discovered they were missing, unused or never received by the patients.

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