Thank you Eric Holder -Federal agents charge 91 in Medicare fraud case

[malaise]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/09/07/medicare.fraud/

<snip>
Four hundred federal agents from coast to coast swooped down on 70 alleged Medicare fraudsters for allegedly ripping off taxpayers of nearly $300 million in phony billings.

The 70 arrests Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, including doctors and nurses, come on the heels of 21 additional arrests in recent days in an operation designed to significantly dent the growing scourge of health care fraud.

"From Brooklyn to Miami to Los Angeles, the defendants allegedly treated the Medicare program like a personal piggy bank," said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius presided over a news conference to trumpet the success of the Medicare fraud strike force. The takedown in eight cities involved the largest amount of false Medicare billings in the history of strike force operations.
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These fucking scumbags are the problem - what about Rick Scott now???

[Broderick]

1. WOOHOO

didn't think they would have time to do real things.

[teddy51]

2. Any bets that these scumbags turn out to be mostly Repugs? n/t

[malaise]

3. You Betcha

Duh!!!

[NightWatcher]

4. If Holder's investigating real crimes, who'll harass the medical marijuana clinics?

[DURHAM D]

5. Families of Medicare patients can help.

"Court documents indicate many of the defendants allegedly submitted claims to Medicare for treatments that were medically unnecessary or simply never provided."

My Mother spent the last two years of her life in a Memory Unit. Near the end we caught the rest home trying to schedule a hearing test and speech therapy sessions. We stopped it. However, if a family member was not visiting at least once a day this would of gone on through and been billed to Medicare. We would not of received her annual report until long after she had died and reporting the fraud probably would not have done any good.

As it was, we found $13K in billing from a Hospice that provided no services and reported it as soon as we knew about it to Medicare but they simply did not seem to care. We felt that the rest home and Hospice were partners in committing fraud but I don't think Medicare gave a damn. My guess, Hospice kicked back half of the money to the rest home.

Medicare should have a hotline for reporting fraud - no matter how small the amount. Its the families that know. Over and over again as we caught billing errors and bogus testing the staff at the rest home asked us why we cared. They kept saying - its not your money. They are trained to commit fraud. I don't even think most of the staff members know they are criminals.

[MrsBrady]

6. medicare fruad page with link

http://www.medicare.gov/fraudabuse/howtoreport.asp