Doctors trying to Bilk Medicare

Dozens arrested in health care fraud scheme

Doctors among those accused in scam to bilk Medicare through false claims

MIAMI - Federal authorities arrested 32 people, including doctors, in a major health care fraud bust Wednesday in New York, Louisiana, Boston and Houston, targeting scams such as "arthritis kits" — expensive braces that many patients never used.

It's the third major sweep since Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced in May they were adding millions of dollars and dozens of agents to combat a problem that costs the U.S. billions each year.

Using about a dozen agents in targeted cities, including Miami, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, has recovered $371 million in false Medicare claims and charged 145 people across the country in just two months. Medicare is the federal health care program for the elderly. More at link.

How long has this been happening and who is the watch dog for this program?

The first task force started in 2007 in Miami, a city authorities say alone is responsible for more than $3 billion a year in Medicare fraud. Clinic owners there would bill Medicare dozens of times for the same wheelchair, while never giving the medical equipment to patients.

Here's an article from 2008. The problem was the same then but nothing was done.

Congress tight with Medicare anti-fraud funds

For years, Medicare has begged Congress to help stop the loss of billions of dollars to healthcare scams from Miami to Los Angeles.

Congress' blunt response: Forgetaboutit.

Since 2006, Medicare administrators have asked Congress for $300 million to fight fraud, but Congress has refused to give them any money.

Why? Distrust of the agency that runs the federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled. Political indifference to the Medicare fraud crisis itself. Plus, influential lobbyists and campaign donors who dislike government meddling in the huge healthcare industry.

All have undermined any attempts to cure what ails Medicare -- a 43-year-old program threatened by not only runaway costs but also unbridled fraud, as a Miami Herald series documented last week. It exposed rampant corruption in two regional healthcare fields -- medical equipment suppliers and HIV-infusion clinics -- which fuels South Florida's reputation as the nation's capital of Medicare fraud.

The fraud has to be addressed in Health Care Reform. How much of the increases in Medicare are do to fraud? Double and triple billing! And I blame both parties for this. They dropped the ball here!