Bilking the U.S. government out of millions of dollars seems never to have been easier, with fraudsters using the federal government health plan for the elderly and disabled as a vehicle for thievery.
One Florida woman, cited in a June story in the Washington Post, sent more than 140,000 fraudulent claims over her laptop to Medicare over four years, and ended up with some $105 million to luxuriate in the two townhouses and Mercedes-Benz that money bought her. Officials estimate that such fraud costs the Medicare system funded by taxpayers $60 billion per year – and they say officials should devote as many resources to sniffing out fraud as it does to investigating overbilling and unconventional medical treatments.
Medicare also automatically pays most of the bills it receives from companies that have federally issued supplier numbers without even a cursory check of what the company is billing for. In another Florida case earlier this month, FBI agents arrested three men for allegedly running sham HIV clinics that had billed the government more than $100 million.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversee federally funded health programs, said they have instituted new measures to combat fraud, including working more closely with investigators, removing the mandatory billing numbers of nearly 900 companies and preventing convicted felons in areas of high fraud from receiving a Medicare number.
In the Miami area, the U.S. Justice Department created a strike force over the past year that opened almost 900 criminal investigations and convicted 560 defendants of healthcare fraud, according to the Post. The strike force is expanding into Los Angeles and Houston.
US Medical Fraud
Published: 07 July 2008
By Beth
