The State Auditors issued a report saying the State Health Plan may have overpaid as much as $49 million over the past three years. The plan points the finger at Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, which administers the plan. State Auditor Beth Wood says studies show that 3 percent to 10 percent of health care payments are overpayments, either unintentional errors or fraud. But Blue Cross only tagged 1 percent as overpayments. Today's audit follows one last week where the State Auditor said the health plan had overpaid N.C. Baptist Hospital $1.34 million.
Joe Neff came to The N&O in 1992 and has covered prisons, police, courts and the legislature. His most recent major work was "Agents' Secrets," a four-part series about problems in the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation. He can be reached at 
