Avril Elfi from OAN
Saturday, June 29, 2024, 10:30 a.m.
The Department of Justice has indicted 193 people on charges of $2.8 billion in health care fraud.
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On Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland said: 2 weeks of surgery The case charged 193 people nationwide, including 76 licensed health care providers, with participating in the health care fraud scheme.
Garland said the 145 cases uncovered by the Justice Department involved more than $2.75 billion in intended losses and $1.6 billion in actual losses. Allegations uncovered by the Justice Department included medically unnecessary amniotic wound grafts, the diversion of HIV medications, the online distribution of Adderall and other telehealth schemes.
“As health care fraud schemes continue to evolve, so will the Department of Justice’s investigative and prosecution strategies,” Garland said. “Our message to those who seek to exploit patients and defraud government programs is clear: You cannot hide your crimes. We will find you and hold you accountable.”
The Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) are some of the numerous state and federal law enforcement agencies with which the Federal Criminal Division’s Health Care Fraud Unit collaborated.
In addition to convictions in 32 federal districts and 11 states, the government claimed it was able to seize more than $231 million in “cash, luxury vehicles, gold, and other assets.”
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks LaSure also said in a statement that the center had “filed 127 separate administrative actions against health care providers over the past six months for allegedly engaging in health care fraud schemes.”
A top law enforcement priority was a fraud scheme that racked up more than $900 million, in which four defendants allegedly preyed on elderly Medicare patients to undergo costly amniotic membrane transplant procedures. The procedures were administered to superficial wounds “indiscriminately, without coordination with the patients’ primary care physicians, and without proper treatment of infections,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
According to the Department of Justice, two of the defendants received more than $600 million from Medicare in just 16 months.
Another case described by the government involved the owner and three executives of a pharmaceutical wholesaler who were charged by law enforcement with participating in a $90 million wire fraud conspiracy involving “counterfeit and fraudulent HIV drugs” that they allegedly bought back from patients and resold to pharmacies across the country.
“Patients sometimes received bottles labeled as prescription medication, but which contained an entirely different drug. One patient lost consciousness and remained unconscious for 24 hours after taking an antipsychotic medication he thought was a prescribed HIV treatment,” the Justice Department wrote.
The government also highlighted previously public charges against the clinical president and CEO of telemedicine startup Done, which it alleges filled 40 million prescriptions for Adderall and other stimulants.
Recent announcements have suggested new charges against co-conspirators, including a Florida nurse who, according to the Department of Justice, prescribed more than 1.5 million medications without consulting patients.
In a statement, Dawn said he “does not agree” with the accusations against the company’s management and vowed to continue business as usual.
“Health care fraud victimizes patients, jeopardizes the health care of vulnerable people, and plunders health care programs,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. “This broad collaboration demonstrates the FBI’s commitment to rooting out predatory health care fraud, protecting patients, and ensuring that critical health care dollars get to where they are needed most.”
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