Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell have announced an unprecedented nationwide sweep led by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force in 36 federal districts, resulting in criminal and civil charges against 301 individuals, including 61 doctors, nurses, and other licensed medical professionals, for their alleged participation in health care fraud schemes involving approximately $900 million in false billings. Twenty-three state Medicaid Fraud Control Units also participated in the arrests. In addition, the HHS Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is suspending payment to a number of providers using its suspension authority provided in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
This coordinated takedown is the largest in history, both in terms of the number of defendants charged and loss amount.
The defendants are charged with various health care fraud-related crimes, including conspiracy to commit health care fraud, violations of the anti-kickback statutes, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft. The charges are based on a variety of alleged fraud schemes involving various medical treatments and services, including home health care, psychotherapy, physical and occupational therapy, durable medical equipment (DME), and prescription drugs. More than 60 of the defendants arrested are charged with fraud related to the Medicare prescription drug benefit program known as Part D, which is the fastest-growing component of the Medicare program overall.
“As this takedown should make clear, health care fraud is not an abstract violation or benign offense. It is a serious crime,” says Lynch. “The wrongdoers that we pursue in these operations seek to use public funds for private enrichment. 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 Department of Justice is determined to continue working to ensure that the American people know that their health care system works for them and them alone.”
“Millions of seniors depend on Medicare for essential health coverage, and our action shows that this administration remains committed to cracking down on individuals who try to defraud the program,” says Burwell. “We are continuing to put new tools and additional resources to work, including $350 million from the Affordable Care Act, for health care fraud prevention and enforcement efforts. Thanks to the hard work of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, we are making progress in addressing and deterring fraud and delivering results to help ensure Medicare remains strong for years to come.”
According to court documents, the defendants allegedly participated in schemes to submit claims to Medicare and Medicaid for treatments that were medically unnecessary and often never provided. In many cases, patient recruiters, Medicare beneficiaries, and other co-conspirators were allegedly paid cash kickbacks in return for supplying beneficiary information to providers, so that the providers could then submit fraudulent bills to Medicare for services that were medically unnecessary or never performed. Collectively, the doctors, nurses, licensed medical professionals, health care company owners, and others charged are accused of submitting a total of approximately $900 million in fraudulent billing.
The Medicare Fraud Strike Force operations are part of the Health Care Fraud Prevention & Enforcement Action Team (HEAT), a joint initiative announced in May 2009 between the Department of Justice and HHS to focus their efforts to prevent and deter fraud and enforce current anti-fraud laws around the country. The Medicare Fraud Strike Force operates in nine locations and since its inception in March 2007 has charged more than 2,900 defendants who collectively have falsely billed the Medicare program for over $8.9 billion.
Takedown by location
For the Strike Force locations, in the Southern District of Florida, a total of 100 defendants were charged with offenses relating to their participation in various fraud schemes involving approximately $220 million in false billings for home health care, mental health services, and pharmacy fraud. In one case, nine defendants have been charged with operating six different Miami-area home health companies for the purpose of submitting false and fraudulent claims to Medicare, including for services that were not medically necessary and that were based on bribes and kickbacks. In total, Medicare paid the six companies over $24 million as a result of the scheme.
In the Southern District of Texas, 24 individuals were charged in cases involving over $146 million in alleged fraud. One of these defendants is a physician with the highest number of referrals for home health services in the Southern District of Texas. This physician has been charged with participating in separate schemes to bill Medicare for medically unnecessary home health services that were often not provided. Numerous companies that submitted claims to Medicare using the fraudulent home health referrals from the physician were paid over $38 million by Medicare.
In the Northern District of Texas, 11 people were charged in cases involving over $47 million in alleged fraud. In one scheme, a physician allowed unlicensed individuals to perform physician services and then billed Medicare as if he performed them. Additionally, the physician certified patients for home health care that was often medically unnecessary. Home health companies submitted approximately $23.3 million in billings to Medicare based on the physician’s fraudulent certifications.
In the Central District of California, 22 defendants were charged for their roles in schemes to defraud Medicare of approximately $162 million. In one case, a doctor was charged with causing almost $12 million in losses to Medicare through his own fraudulent billing, including performing medically unnecessary vein ablation procedures on Medicare beneficiaries.
In the Eastern District of Michigan, 19 defendants face charges for their alleged roles in fraud, kickback, money laundering, and drug distribution schemes involving approximately $114 million in false claims for services that were medically unnecessary or never rendered. Among these are owners of a physical therapy clinic who lured patients through the payment of cash kickbacks and medically unnecessary prescriptions for Schedule II medications for the purpose of stealing more than $36 million from Medicare.
In Tampa, Orlando, and elsewhere in the Middle District of Florida, 15 individuals were charged with participating in a variety of schemes including compounding pharmacy fraud and intravenous prescription drug fraud involving $17 million in fraudulent billing. In one case, the owner of several infusion clinics allegedly defrauded the Medicare program of over $8 million through a scheme involving reimbursement claims for expensive intravenous prescription drugs that were never purchased and never administered to patients.
In the Northern District of Illinois, six individuals were charged in cases related to three different schemes involving bribery and false and fraudulent claims for home health services and disability benefits. The charged defendants include individuals who owned or co-owned the fraudulent providers and a medical doctor. In total, these schemes resulted in over $12 million being paid to the defendants and their companies.
In the Eastern District of New York, 10 individuals were charged in six different cases, including five individuals who were charged for their roles in a scheme involving over $86 million in physical and occupational therapy claims to Medicare and Medicaid. In that case, the defendants are alleged to have filled a network of Brooklyn clinics that they controlled with patients by paying bribes and kickbacks. Once at the clinics, these patients were subjected to medically unnecessary therapy. The defendants then laundered the proceeds of the fraud through over a dozen shell companies.
In the Eastern District of Louisiana, three defendants were charged in connection with a health care fraud and wire fraud conspiracy involving a defunct home health care provider. This scheme centered on the payment of kickbacks through patient recruiters in exchange for patients who oftentimes never received nor qualified for home health care as billed. Once admitted, patient medical records were routinely fabricated and altered to support false and fraudulent claims to Medicare.
