It was the largest Medicare fraud dragnet in United States history, and authorities say the accused fraudsters were responsible for nearly a billion dollars in theft.
Officials also warned this is just the beginning — and only a drop in the bucket that costs honest taxpayers tens of billions every year.
Health care fraud sweeps across the country led to charges against 300 people including doctors, nurses, physical therapists and home health care providers accused of bilking Medicare and Medicaid, the government announced Wednesday.
The sweep spread from southern California to southern Florida and Houston to Brooklyn, New York, with arrests being made over three days.
In all, the fraudulent billings allegedly totaled $900 million, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said, calling it the biggest national fraud dragnet in U.S. history.
The defendants billed for care and prescriptions that were not necessary and services that were not rendered, authorities said.
Among those charged, for example, was a group that controlled a network of clinics in Brooklyn that received $38 million from Medicare and Medicaid after providing patients unnecessary treatment. A Detroit clinic billed Medicare for more than $36 million, even though Lynch said it was actually a front for a narcotics diversion scheme.
Such investigations happen each year, but Lynch said investigators noticed some new trends, including the use of doctors’ stolen IDs to prepare fake prescriptions.
Law enforcement agencies often coordinate the announcement of health fraud charges and arrests to send a message to fraudsters and the general public alike. Health care fraud costs tens of billions of dollars annually.
“As this takedown should make clear, health care fraud is not an abstract violation or benign offense. It is a serious crime. The wrongdoers that we pursue in these operations seek to use public funds for private enrichment,” said Lynch. “They target real people — many of them in need of significant medical care. They promise effective cures and therapies, but they provide none. Above all, they abuse basic bonds of trust — between doctor and patient, between pharmacist and doctor, between taxpayer and government — and pervert them to their own ends.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
to quote Dr Ron Paul – “Don’t steal, the government doesn’t like competition.”
The fraud in Welfare and Medicaid in CA is BIG.
Another fraud issue is women having a baby here illegally or on Visa. Child is citizen! Child comes back here when 5 and lives in foster care homes run by The Churches. Your county ( tax dollars at work) . pays for foster care. Churches also charge the parents for their keep here. Most of these kids parents are wealthy. The kids parents can’t be penalizes if the child is in foreign country with parents. They give kids homework when on break. Thanksgiving until after New Years and summer breaks. Foster care still gets monthly check for each child from our government. We need a law! Mother is illegal, CHILD IS ILLEGAL. NO MORE ANCHOR BABIES.
I FOUND SEVERAL BILLS FROM NURSING HOME, BILLED TO MEDICARE. HUSBAND WASN’T IN NURSING HOME AT THAT TIME.
900 Million is chicken feed compared to what the Clintons stole from taxpayers while Hillary was Secretary of State.
I have to say this or it will haunt me. This is what a CORRUPT GOVERNMENT teaches people. How to be SNEAKY, PAY-OFF, FRAUD, COOK THE BOOKS, ETC…. I can’t blame it ALL on obama, however, I CAN blame 90%.of it on him though!!!!! HE TAKES FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND GIVES TO ILLEGALS, REFUGEES, ETC…….I don’t have a problem with anyone from other countries, only when they come here and “GET BY” with everything we have to offer and then I find myself fighting tooth and nail to get any kind of help, much less OUR VETS that are homeless…..I PRAY EVERYDAY THAT THE LORD WILL OPEN THE EYES OF MY FELLOW AMERICANS THAT ARE WANTING MORE OF obama’s MESS. GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!!! TRUMP 2016!!!!!!!!!!!!
Trump is the only chance we have left!
If Obama doesn’t get us all blown up before that day gets here!
These fraudsters should have all their records examined. They should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Their ill-gotten gain should be seized. Once these criminals find insurance fraud to be a good way for them to lose their freedom and their wealth they may decide that stealing is not worth it.
Only $900 million? With all of the fraud, waste, and abuse in our government programs these lite-weights only got this little bit? Ms. Clinton is probably ashamed of you. She wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning for this little bit of dough.
First, i’m glad they got caught. FINALLY, something positive to come out of the D’OweBama maladministration.
Second, hopefully, there’ll be large fines and long jail sentences handed out.
Third, just imagine! If the DoJ just does this only one thousand more times, they’ll be able to put ONE of the twenty-trillion we’re behind back into the Treasury!
Fourth, i was REALLY hoping they’d go after the fraud and waste in Iraq from the Shrub’s maladministration, which makes these 300 people pikers in comparison.
Democrats, all democrats. The thieves! Let all of us pull a sit in of our own. Don’t go to work for 3 days. Don’t buy anything for those three days. And watch the entitlement illegal aliens all go back to their third world hell holes. No Tax money collected…no EBT cards, no welfare!
no, they should be executed. A violation against the people, by the people is treason.
John-
There’s only one crime defined in the Constitution, and that’s treason.
Look it up, and you’ll see that none of these people come close to fitting the description.
That said, i understand how you feel. Perhaps they should be executed after they watch everything they ever owned be sold off to pay back a portion of their debt – or maybe they should get forced labor for the rest of their lives, at prison wages, and all of that confiscated, too.
The Government is full of thieves!! They should all be shot!
” providing patients unnecessary treatment.”
though I agree there’s a lot of fraud in Medicare, I question who’s deciding what constitutes “unnecessary treatment.” This sort of thing could easily go to the other extreme and deny people care simply because some pencil-pusher thinks it’s “unnecessary.” (And yes, I know that’s llready happening, too.)
Health care IS a fraud
The government has taken GOD and the BIBLE out of schools. workplace and etc. This is governments encouragement to lie cheat and steal. Look at CLINTONS how they both lied and cheated.
I wonder how long this has been going on because this administration will be gone in January. When this administration is gone the new administration will see just who the bad guys are & how screwed up our country is just maybe the jails will be overflowing. Trump will know what to do, deport illegals & build the wall & put people back to work drilling for oil on federal land that they stole from the tax payers.
Why can doctors charge you for a office visit and then also charge you for what they do. I am a contractor and if I charged people including doctors and lawyers for a house call and then charge them for the job I do the people would scream. So tell the others that office visit are not legal charges.
The IRS has one per person for every 100 applications every day requesting child support from illegal parentage, ‘Anchor babies’.
The cases HAVE.. to be rubber stamped for the IRS employee to garnish performance.
Several billions a year are lost here. When for some few millions, additional employees could save billions in taxation revenues.
We’ve so much wasted in our tax revenues there is no doubt an amount matching all the borrowing and over spending above collections.
As to the illegals, look how far some are willing to go to defend this corrupted allowance with illegals carrying foreign flags and attacking Americans at political events, they are more than willing to, as illegals with no documentation, to protest directly in front of the White House.
When can Americans get to see the fruits of their taxation not wasted on non-Americans and political hacks, I don’t know.
But if approval slips much more, a point will come where either Americans threaten insurrection or the illegals do.