In Other News:
Feds Bust Organized Crime Medicare Fraud Scheme
Published on Tue Sep 28, 2010
The feds have taken down one of the huge Medicare fraud schemes of the type that is making your life harder. Law- and policy-makers have been issuing new compliance rules based on the crimes like those allegedly committed by an Armenian -- American organized crime syndicate. Seventy-three defendants in that case were charged in indictments unsealed Oct. 13 in five judicial districts with various health care fraud-related crimes involving more than $163 million in fraudulent billing, says the Department of Justice, FBI, and OIG in a release. The defendants allegedly stole the identities of doctors and thousands of Medicare beneficiaries and operated at least 118 different phony clinics in 25 states, the release says. The criminal operation is "the largest Medicare fraud scheme ever perpetrated by a single criminal enterprise and charged by the Department of Justice." "The emergence of international organized crime in domestic health care fraud schemes signals [...]