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Home Health & Hospice Week

Enforcement:

Feds Indict Fraudsters In Hot Spots Nationwide

Published on Thu Oct 18, 2012

HHAs with patients from indicted doc see no suspensions -- yet.Legitimate home care providers are paying the price for the fraudsters infiltrating the industry, both via reputational injury and increased scrutiny from authorities."The home health industry is once again front and center in the fraud allegations," laments attorney Liz Pearson with Pearson & Bernard in Edgewood, Ky., referring to the record-breaking $492 million in fraud schemes for which the government recently issued indictments (see related story, p. 286).The indictments list these individuals and agencies in $230 million in home care schemes:In Dallas: Dr. Joseph Megwa of Raphem Medical Practice in Arlington, Texas signed about 33,000 prescriptions for more than 2,000 Medicare beneficiaries from 2006 to 2011 and was responsible for about $100 million in home care fraud, the Department of Justice says in a release. "In order to handle the volume of prescriptions, Megwa allegedly signed stacks of documents without reviewing [...]
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