News >> Browse Articles >> Government
News >> Browse Articles >> Medicare/Medicaid
News >> Browse Articles >> Scandals
Feds Indict 53 for Medicare Fraud
(Source: AP)
Associated Press/AP Online
June 25, 2009
WASHINGTON – Federal authorities indicted 53 people on Wednesday for schemes to cheat Medicare out of $50 million.
Suspects were arrested in Detroit, Miami, and Denver as part of a wide-ranging effort by the government to crack down on those allegedly defrauding the government-funded health care program for the elderly and disabled.
Attorney General Eric Holder, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and FBI Director Robert Mueller announced the charges at a news conference in Washington.
Sebelius said the Obama administration is determined to crack down on Medicare fraud through new teams of investigators detecting patterns of false billing. Forty of the suspects have already been arrested and the rest are being sought, authorities said.
“The Obama administration is committed to turning up the heat on Medicare fraud,” said Sebelius.
The announcement came in a week that the administration is making a major push to advance health care reform legislation.
Prosecutors charge the suspects concocted schemes to submit bogus claims to Medicare for treatments that were medically unnecessary and in many cases never provided.
Some of the beneficiaries accepted cash payments in exchange for signing paperwork claiming they had received certain medical treatments, authorities said.
The charges were filed against the operators of infusion therapy and physical therapy clinics. Those charged include doctors, medical assistants, company owners and executives, as well as those who claimed to be patients.
Officials routinely say fraud costs the Medicare and Medicaid programs billions of dollars every year, but those two programs are enormously expensive, costing the U.S. government some $650 billion a year.
A day earlier, prosecutors in Miami announced arrests in a separate Medicare fraud case. In that case, eight people were charged with trying to steal $100 million from Medicare and Medicare Advantage. Officials said that while the type of fraud was similar, the two operations were not related.
© YellowBrix 2009 
PhillyXTech
4 months ago
388 comments
I'll take a little inefficiency any day in exchange for a little accountability. But by all means, cling to a system based upon values of greed and avarice that attempts to get the maximum in premiums while paying the minimum in claims in order to make a buck.
I can't believe that after all of this there are people who still truely believe that the free market gives a crap about making certain that everyone is cared for on a relatively equal basis.
If that were true, then the free market would have given me a $50,000,000 mansion years ago.
We need to get our heads out of our rear ends about the whole issue of health care provision.
Only not for profit organizations can be truely trusted to run healthcare equitably and as unfortunate or fortunate as it may be depending on your opinion, the federal government is the only Not for profit entity large enough to take on such a task.
Blue Cross/ Blue Shield, Etna, and all the other fat cats up in Hartford are not going to cover poor people ever, not just "illegal imigrants," but poor people, like the kind Joe the Plumber pretended to be before it came out that he makes more a year on his business than most lawers and doctors do. Poor people like janitors, soccer coaches, new teachers, nurses aids, carpenters, etc. . . . . . I simply don't think that people truely realize just how hard you have to work nowadays to simply qualify as "POOR," and not "DESTITUTE and ready to sell your body parts for money."
So they continue to lord this conservative attitude that insurance companies can find a way to solve the crisis on their own without government intervention.
kstaffeil, you are either insanely rich, in which case you will not be affected by the healthcare reform because you can afford to pay out of pocket anyway. . . Or else you are extremely naive in your belief that you will be able to afford your own health insurance for much longer unless the government steps in.
The crackdowns on fraud represent a necessary continuing step to stem the burst aortic bleedin of money from medicare, but make no mistake this is not something that a general practitionar can solve. Our healthcare system requires a complete and total emergency procedure by a vascular specialist, and if that means we have to cut a few spare parts from the rest of the body to save the whole thing, then I say F-All the currently existing insurance companies including my own. Let the government take them over like it should have done with AIG rather than just giving them more money to waste like they always have.
Just like the banks. When a system doesn't work you don't give them a stern look and a giant check and tell them to fix things, you totaly burn them to the ground and start over.
kstaffeil
4 months ago
10 comments
Wait until all of our Healthcare is government controlled then watch the fraud and many of our representatives will be at the front of the pack as they are now. Don't kid yourself that any government program will be more efficient. It will cost us more, give us less and our "elected officials" will profit from our loss.
TarheelRN_23
4 months ago
2 comments
Whomever they are... They don't belong in Healthcare.
bn_dash22
4 months ago
2 comments
HEALTHCARE IS NOW TO ACHIEVE 9 SIGMA IN QUALITY. IF THIS FRAUD IN A PROFESSION IN HEALTHCARE WILL CONTINUE, PATIENTS WILL BE IN DILEMMA IF TO WHOM THEY WILL BELIEVE?
Cameron01
4 months ago
60 comments
i can't believe all these people were trying to get away with this! especially in this economy! shame!!!!!!!!!!