Feds Charge 32 with Medicare Fraud
Posted on 15. Dec, 2009 in News Stories
Earlier today, 32 people from Miami, Brooklyn, and Detroit were charged with defrauding Medicare. According to officials, this represented at least 4 separate white-collar crime rings totaling more than $61 million in fraudulent claims. Included in the largest case, in Miami, was Dr. Fred Dweck, 74, the only medical doctor named so far.
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Dr. Dweck was the director of Courtesy Medical Group in Miami. Amongst the 14 others were owners of clinic and registered nurses. They are accused of falsely billing Medicare out of more than $40 million by listing patients as blind diabetics, billing Medicare for expensive in-home services that were not needed (or even done).
For many, this should come as no surprise. Miami-Dade is the hotbed of Medicare fraud in the country, centering on pay-outs for diabetes. While it receives more Medicare payments to diabetes patients than the rest of the country put together, Miami-Dade is home to only 2% of the nation’s diabetics eligible for the program.
Another Miami-Dade case involved operators of an HIV-infusion clinic. Those arrested in Detroit were said to have paid special recruiters to find patients that were willing to fake symptoms so that Medicare could be billed for expensive tests. Perhaps most interesting is a mother and son team that was arrested and charged with billing Medicare for expensive shoe inserts made for diabetics — even though what they were actually selling were a much cheaper kind.
These are the latest crackdowns as part of a larger effort in the past two years by the Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services to curtail and stop medical fraud in the United States.
“Medicare fraud is not a victimless crime,” says Lanny Breuer, who is an assistant attorney general. “It hurts every American taxpayer by raising the cost of health care.”
Donald
Dec 16th, 2009
Finally, the government is getting all these Medicare frauds and putting them in jail. About time.
What_the_heck
Dec 17th, 2009
Well, talk about having “Fun under the sun” all 61 million dollars worth of fun. Unfortunately for those of us that now have to pay higher costs for healthcare there isn’t much fun to be had!