Mass Arrests Made In Quarter-Billion Dollar Medicare Fraud Case
Federal authorities have arrested 90 people in over six cities for submitting false billings to the Medicare system. The defendants range from doctors, pharmacy owners, and even elderly Medicare patients themselves. The authorities allege that the group bilked the taxpayers out of around $260 million in false or inflated billings to the government health insurance program for the elderly. Reuters reports that this is just the latest installment of a large scale crackdown on Medicare fraud that started 7 years ago and has uncovered over $6 billion in fraudulent claims.
The majority of this week’s arrests occurred in South Florida which some are deeming “the hotbed of Medicare Fraud.” Additional arrests were conducted in Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, Tampa Bay, and Houston. The wide range of defendants is due to the complexity of the alleged scheme. Some defendants are on trial as legitimate Medicare recipients who allegedly received kickbacks for allowing physicians to use their names for fraudulent claims. Others are doctors and medical equipment companies accused of billing for services and equipment that were either never used or never existed. The most expensive claims are the alleged Medicare Part D violations where non existent prescription drugs are charged to real or fictional patients.
“We find ourselves to constantly be engaged in a game of whack-a-mole,” US Attorney Wilfredo Ferrer said. “These small pharmacies, which some people can actually describe as holes-in-the-wall are actually billing a lot more to Part D than major national chains.” Attorney Ferrer seems to have a point, in the 7 years since the Medicare fraud crackdown began 1,900 people have been charged but more and more Medicare schemes pop up. It will be interesting to see what reforms the FBI and Justice Department create to quell the wave of fraudulent charges to the system.
quoted from here
The majority of this week’s arrests occurred in South Florida which some are deeming “the hotbed of Medicare Fraud.” Additional arrests were conducted in Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, Tampa Bay, and Houston. The wide range of defendants is due to the complexity of the alleged scheme. Some defendants are on trial as legitimate Medicare recipients who allegedly received kickbacks for allowing physicians to use their names for fraudulent claims. Others are doctors and medical equipment companies accused of billing for services and equipment that were either never used or never existed. The most expensive claims are the alleged Medicare Part D violations where non existent prescription drugs are charged to real or fictional patients.
“We find ourselves to constantly be engaged in a game of whack-a-mole,” US Attorney Wilfredo Ferrer said. “These small pharmacies, which some people can actually describe as holes-in-the-wall are actually billing a lot more to Part D than major national chains.” Attorney Ferrer seems to have a point, in the 7 years since the Medicare fraud crackdown began 1,900 people have been charged but more and more Medicare schemes pop up. It will be interesting to see what reforms the FBI and Justice Department create to quell the wave of fraudulent charges to the system.
quoted from here
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