Medicare Part D Takedown
In what certainly was the largest healthcare-fraud takedown in history, 243 individuals charged with $712 million in allegedly false billings for Medicare services were arrested on June 18. The multiagency investigation spanned 17 federal districts from Florida to Alaska and involved more than 900 law enforcement personnel. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch held a press conference to announce the action. Her remarks are here. Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also issued a press release discussing the event. But one of the harshest warnings came from Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who said, "When you charge for a medical procedure you never performed, for something a patient never needed or asked for, and steal millions from our taxpayers, we are coming after you." That was in reaction to charges in the Southern District of Florida relating to 38 cases involving allegations of more than $262.5 million in false billings. Those charges accounted for almost a third of the defendants and more than a third of the alleged losses. As FBI Director James B. Comey said, "[O]ne dollar stolen from our health care programs is one dollar too many."
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