Medicaid spending on a top autism therapy has surged past $5 billion, drawing scrutiny over fraud and how taxpayer dollars are being spent.

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), one of the most common treatments for children with autism, uses structured, one-on-one sessions to build communication, social and daily living skills. Between 2018 and 2024, Medicaid providers paid out more than $5.15 billion under an ABA billing code. Three providers received roughly $685 million in Medicaid reimbursements during that period.

The data alone does not explain why those reimbursements were so high, and billing experts say unusually large payments can reflect a variety of factors.

MINNESOTA FRAUD SUSPECT SKIPS COURT, FORFEITS BOND, THROWING $11M MEDICAID CASE INTO DOUBT

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy helps children with autism build communication, social and daily living skills through structured, one-on-one sessions.  (iStock / iStock)

Officials at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) told Fox News Digital it has observed “significant growth” in Medicaid spending on ABA therapy in recent years.

“While access to medically necessary services remains a priority, rapid program growth also underscores the importance of ensuring services are clinically appropriate, delivered by qualified providers, and supported by strong program integrity safeguards,” a CMS spokesperson said.

As spending has grown, federal prosecutors have pursued multimillion-dollar fraud cases involving ABA providers.

In May, two Minnesota autism clinic operators were charged with allegedly billing Medicaid $46.6 million for services prosecutors say were unnecessary or never provided. Another Minnesota woman pleaded guilty in a separate $14 million Medicaid autism fraud scheme.

Investigations by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have also documented allegations that some providers billed for services that were never provided, inflated therapy hours and aggressively expanded as Medicaid spending surged.

TRUMP ADMIN PAUSING OVER $1B IN MEDICAID PAYMENTS TO MINNESOTA, CALIFORNIA OVER FRAUD, COMPLIANCE CONCERNS

Eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse in federal programs, including Medicaid, has emerged as a key policy priority for the Trump administration during its second term. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images / Getty Images)

The scrutiny comes as the Trump administration has made it a focus of his second term to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse across federal programs, including Medicaid, a central policy priority.

Meanwhile, states have responded differently.

Florida says it recovered more than $72 million in improper Medicaid payments over the past year.

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently announced a statewide Medicaid Integrity Initiative to strengthen provider screening, enhance fraud detection and increase oversight.

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Republicans have argued that eliminating fraud, waste and abuse in Medicaid should be a priority before considering broader changes to the program, saying improper payments divert taxpayer dollars from vulnerable Americans who depend on the safety ne (iStock / iStock)

While Florida has focused on strengthening fraud enforcement, Georgia lawmakers have focused on reimbursement rates, even as industry representatives testified that use of autism therapy services has increased by more than 300% in recent years.

The debate reflects the difficult balance between rooting out fraud and preserving access to a therapy that many families say has been life-changing for children with autism.

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Institutional investors accounted for 72% of spot trading by volume on Wintermute’s over-the-counter desk in the first half of 2026, up from 59% a year earlier, even as overall crypto volumes weakened, according to a recent report from the trading firm. The shift underscores how Wall Street is becoming the market’s primary source of liquidity, damping its trademark volatility along the way.

While crypto was built on retail speculation and momentum trading, the recent lull is a sign of how professional traders are now setting the tone.“These trends suggest crypto is entering a more institutionally driven market structure, with capital becoming increasingly concentrated, derivatives playing a larger role in expressing exposure, and tokenized assets beginning to see meaningful secondary market activity,” Wintermute analysts said in a report.

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Part of the shift is from institutions changing how they gain exposure. Rather than buying tokens outright, they are increasingly using derivatives, structured products and exchange-traded funds.

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It is not just happening for Bitcoin and Ether products. Altcoin options volumes on Wintermute’s OTC desk more than tripled from the second half of last year, but liquidity was more concentrated in a smaller group of tokens.
Still, institutions have proven choosier than retail as they prioritize more liquid assets. The variety of tokens traded by professional counterparties grew 24% in the last two years, according to Wintermute, compared with 76% among retail investors.“We’re actually seeing more due diligence from asset managers and wealth managers,” said Alistair Byas-Perry, head of capital markets and investment for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at 21shares AG.

All of this has resulted in one of crypto’s most atypical drawdowns to date. Bitcoin is down roughly 50% from its peak above $126,000 last October, but it has been a steady decline rather than the violent re-pricing that characterized previous crypto winters.

“Crypto is trading like any other asset class now,” said Stephen Coltman, head of macro at 21Shares.

While retail participation is subdued, some traders are undeterred. Adam Potamkin, a 30-year-old paramedic based in Miami, recited a mantra popularized by Strategy Inc. founder Michael Saylor, invoking the mysterious creator of Bitcoin: “Volatility is Satoshi’s gift to the faithful.”

Potamkin said his most recent Bitcoin purchase was just a few months ago, when it was much more expensive. The token was trading at around $63,800 on Tuesday, while its high in May was above $82,000.

“Has my conviction been tested? Absolutely,” he said. “The world feels shakier, and we’re still trying to figure out how to value this asset.”

Some investors believe the market may be nearing a bottom, though few will call it.

“You only know a market has bottomed in hindsight,” Coltman said. “The conditions are there that suggest we could be bottoming, but you don’t know what the future holds.”

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Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

KUWAIT CITY — Kuwait International Airport remains open and operational today, with flights continuing to run through Terminals 4 and 5, though Terminal 1 stays closed following structural damage sustained earlier this year, leaving the airport still short of its full pre-conflict capacity.

According to the airport’s current operating status, passengers flying with Kuwait Airways should expect to depart from Terminal 4, while those traveling with Jazeera Airways will use Terminal 5. Anyone whose original itinerary was booked through Terminal 1 is advised to check directly with their airline regarding rebooking, alternate terminal arrangements or refund options, since that facility remains offline with no confirmed reopening date.

How the Disruption Began

Kuwait International Airport’s ongoing terminal restrictions trace back to damage sustained during the broader regional conflict that has affected Gulf aviation throughout 2026. Terminal 1 sustained structural damage that has kept it closed for repairs for an extended period, forcing the airport to consolidate operations through its remaining functional terminals while reconstruction work continues.

At various points during the height of regional tensions, Kuwait’s national carriers were forced to temporarily reroute operations entirely through Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, requiring passengers to complete lengthy bus transfers to reach their actual flights. While most operations have since returned to Kuwait International Airport itself, the underlying volatility of the situation means schedules can still shift with limited notice, and passengers are being urged to treat travel plans through Kuwait with continued flexibility.

A Long-Term Expansion Continues Alongside the Repairs

Separate from the immediate Terminal 1 repair effort, Kuwait has continued advancing a major, long-planned expansion of its aviation infrastructure. A new Terminal 2, designed by architecture firm Foster + Partners, remains under construction and is targeted for completion in the final quarter of 2026. The project, built around a triangular design, is expected to add dozens of additional gates, thousands of new parking spaces and an air-side hotel once finished, significantly expanding the airport’s overall passenger handling capacity to more than 25 million travelers annually.

That expansion has faced its own setbacks over the years, initially tied to disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, to an Iranian drone strike that caused minor damage to the Terminal 2 construction site itself without affecting the project’s planned completion timeline, according to reporting on the situation.

Regional Airspace Advisories Remain in Effect

Kuwait’s airspace continues to fall under an active conflict-zone advisory issued by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, which covers Kuwait alongside the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and parts of the Gulf of Oman airspace through at least Aug. 31, unless reviewed earlier. That advisory functions as a safety notice for airline operators rather than a formal closure of Kuwaiti airspace, but it reflects the continued elevated risk assessment surrounding air travel across the broader Gulf region even as day-to-day flight operations at Kuwait International Airport have largely stabilized.

Some regional carriers have used this week to resume previously suspended routes into Kuwait. Qatar Airways is resuming flights to Bahrain, Kuwait and Erbil beginning Aug. 8, as regional aviation continues its broader recovery, while Jazeera Airways has restarted its own flights to and from Kuwait, advising passengers to arrive three hours before departure given ongoing security screening requirements. Separately, Oman Air has continued experiencing technical issues and temporary airspace restrictions affecting parts of its network, with possible delays and cancellations still occurring on some routes tied to Kuwait.

What Travelers Should Expect

Cancellations tied to the broader disruption have continued appearing on Kuwait International Airport’s flight boards this week, though at a far more limited scale than during the height of the conflict earlier this year. Passengers are strongly advised to confirm their specific flight details directly with their airline given how frequently conditions have shifted throughout 2026, rather than relying solely on previously booked schedules.

A Cautious but Functional Airport

For now, the practical answer for travelers is straightforward: Kuwait International Airport is open today, and flights are operating through Terminals 4 and 5 without disruption tied to the earlier conflict. But the airport has not yet returned to its full pre-conflict capacity, and the continued uncertainty surrounding Terminal 1’s reopening, combined with the possibility of renewed regional tension affecting operations on short notice, means travelers should treat any planned trip through Kuwait with the same degree of caution and flexibility that has characterized air travel across much of the Gulf region throughout 2026.

With Terminal 2 construction continuing to target a fourth-quarter 2026 completion and Terminal 1’s repair timeline still unconfirmed, Kuwait International Airport’s capacity is expected to remain constrained relative to its pre-conflict baseline for at least the next several months. Travelers booking flights through Kuwait in the near term should continue monitoring official airline and airport channels closely, given both the ongoing terminal restrictions and the broader regional airspace advisories that remain in effect across the Gulf.

Njord Partners is a London-headquartered investment manager which manages over $1 billion in capital.

Founded in 2013 by former KKR director Jakob Kjellberg and ex-Oaktree Capital executive Arvid Trolle, the firm specialises in providing long-term, flexible capital to companies in financial distress.

Mads Videbæk joined the founders in 2014, followed a year later by turnaround specialist Stewart Higginson, who established the firm’s in-house value creation function.

Njord covers the hospitality and maritime sectors, amongst others, with portfolio companies such as Valiant Pub Company, Ambassador Cruise Line, Red Funnel and Geoquip Marine.

Despite its substantial client base and industry recognition, Njord has maintained a relatively low public profile compared with larger special situations investors. However, the public record shows that it has hired APCO, the PR firm which focuses on reputation management.

As one of the world’s largest PR firms, APCO’s client list has included multinational corporations, governments and politically sensitive organisations and its work has periodically attracted scrutiny.

Most recently, The Guardian wrote that the company had been hired by Labour Together to investigate the origins of reporting into the think tank’s undeclared donations. According to documents seen by the Guardian, what followed was an investigation by APCO into journalists and their sources. The Guardian alleged that APCO compiled personal information and, the outlet claims, erroneously linked several journalists to a hack of the Electoral Commission.

Separately, the Financial Times later highlighted allegations that a senior APCO executive discussed deleting material relating to News UK, whose journalists APCO had investigated, after the company had received legal preservation notices. APCO denied the accusations.

Firms like APCO are rarely engaged without a clear reputation management objective. Irrespective of what prompted Njord’s appointment of APCO, it suggests the company sees value in managing how it is perceived by the media, policymakers and other stakeholders.

In the past, there have been media reports linking Njord Partners to Russian state-owned enterprises through its ownership of RETN, the major international network services provider, founded in Russia. While there is no public indication of the specific reasons for APCO’s appointment, the engagement reflects an awareness of the importance of managing stakeholder perceptions.

Chatbot and AI agent are not the same thing. Plenty of vendors would prefer you didn’t know that.

The confusion is understandable, because both get sold under the same banner of AI-powered customer service, and both arrive in your inbox wrapped in near identical case studies. But the products underneath do fundamentally different jobs, and with adoption accelerating the cost of muddling them up is growing. The ONS found that 29 per cent of UK businesses were using at least one form of AI by June 2026, rising to 49 per cent among firms with 250 or more employees. Customer service is one of the most common places that money lands. So it is worth being precise about what it buys.

Most businesses have already met a chatbot, usually in the corner of their own website. It is a scripted system that matches keywords in a customer’s message against a decision tree someone built by hand, then serves whatever response sits on that branch. Ask where your parcel is and it points you at a tracking page. Ask two things at once, or anything the tree never anticipated, and it stalls, loops, or quietly dumps you into a queue with an apology. For a narrow band of repetitive questions this still works fine, and it is cheap to run once built. Chatbots were designed for deflection, keeping enquiries away from human staff, and they were priced per seat or per message volume accordingly, with no reference to whether anyone’s problem actually got solved.

What a chatbot cannot do is act. It can recite the returns policy all day. It cannot process the return.

That is the line the current generation of AI agents crosses. Rather than matching keywords to a script, an agent works out what the customer is actually asking, poses a clarifying question if the request is ambiguous, and then carries out the task across the systems the business already runs on, whether that is order management, billing or the CRM. Amending a delivery address. Cancelling a subscription. Applying a refund and confirming it, all inside one conversation, on chat, email or increasingly voice. The industry calls this agentic AI, and the plainer way to put it is that the old technology answers while the new one resolves.

Follow the pricing and the difference gets even clearer. Because chatbots deflect rather than resolve, their cost has historically had nothing to do with outcomes, and a business could pay for a year of licences, watch the containment numbers look respectable, and still find most customers reaching a human anyway after a frustrating detour. Agentic platforms are increasingly priced per successful resolution instead. That is not a cosmetic difference. It ties the invoice to the result, which makes the technology far easier to weigh against the salaries and overheads it is supposed to offset. The analysts expect this model to win. Gartner predicts that by 2029 agentic AI will autonomously resolve 80 per cent of common customer service issues, cutting operational costs by around 30 per cent for organisations that deploy it well.

None of which means every proposal marked agentic deserves the label.

A few questions separate the two technologies quickly in a sales conversation. Does the system take actions in other software, or does it only produce answers? Ask to watch it complete a task, not describe one. How does it connect to your existing stack, and can it work with the systems you already have rather than demanding a migration? What happens when it fails? A genuine agent escalates to a human with the full conversation attached, so the customer never repeats themselves. And what oversight do you get, in terms of quality assurance, policy controls and a record of how the system reached its decisions? A vendor who cannot show you any of that is selling a chatbot, whatever the invoice says.

The stakes here are not abstract. The UKCSI, the Institute of Customer Service’s national barometer, reached 78.3 out of 100 in July 2026, its strongest reading in four years, driven largely by more customers saying their issue was handled right first time. That recovery took UK service teams two years of work and it is fragile. A badly scripted bot that traps people in loops chips away at exactly the trust being rebuilt, and British consumers hold grudges about that sort of thing. An agent that fixes the issue outright, or hands over gracefully when it cannot, protects it.

So when the next pitch lands promising AI-powered customer service, skip the question of whether it uses artificial intelligence. Nearly everything does now. Ask whether it responds or whether it resolves. That single distinction decides what your money buys, how the pricing works, and whether your customers end the conversation with their problem fixed or with a link to a help article they could have found themselves.