The Justice Department on Thursday announced its largest-ever healthcare fraud enforcement action, and charged 601 people, including 165 medical professions, for making false medical claims worth $2 billion, a quarter of which was related to opioids.
“This is the most fraud, the most defendants, and the most doctors ever charged in a single operation — and we have evidence that our ongoing work has stopped or prevented billions of dollars’ worth of fraud,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement about the Medicare Fraud Strike Force’s work over the past year.
His agency charged the 601 defendants with submitting bogus claims to Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, and private insurance companies, more than one-quarter were for prescribing or distributing opioids and other narcotics. A total of 13 million illegal doses of opioids were issued, the Justice Department said.
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Justice Department charges 601 people in massive, $2 billion healthcare scam https://t.co/k8jlsjphME pic.twitter.com/XSaIWtTeEQ
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) June 29, 2018
Good. Medicare and Medicaid, like just about every other government scheme, is riddled with fraud and has been for years. Back in the 1990s, I helped settle the “estate” of an unmarried uncle — principally paying his final bills. You would not believe how many health care providers tried to bill for the same service two or three times and many of them were successful. When I reported the fraud to Medicare, I was greeted with indifference. Hey, it’s our money, not theirs. Who cares?
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