Hundreds arrested for $900 million worth of health care fraud

[danarhea]

(CNN)The Justice Department announced Wednesday it's charging hundreds of individuals across the countrywith committing Medicare fraud worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

It's the largest takedown in history -- both in terms of the number of people charged and the loss amount, according to the Justice Department.

The biggest bust for Medicare fraud in US history. Almost a billion dollars worth of it.

As we like to say in Texas, get a rope, and hang 'em high.

Article is here.

 

[shrubnose]

The biggest bust for Medicare fraud in US history. Almost a billion dollars worth of it.

As we like to say in Texas, get a rope, and hang 'em high.

Article is here.

Some of the people involved in this fraud need to spend some time behind bars.

BS like this is part of the reason why medical care costs so much in the USA.

 

[Top Cat]

The biggest bust for Medicare fraud in US history. Almost a billion dollars worth of it.

As we like to say in Texas, get a rope, and hang 'em high.

Article is here.

I work extensively with medicare (and medicaid) recipients.

This pisses me off to no end.

As an agent, we are regulated up the ying yang. I have no problem with it. The providers get away with **** like this every day.

 

[Risky Thicket]

And yet how many people were arrested for participating in and causing the financial crisis of 2008?

 

[Captain Adverse]

And yet how many people were arrested for participating in and causing the financial crisis of 2008?

Oh that's a different story. Those were people with insider connections to our government. Hell, one became Secretary of the Treasury.

You know, Henry Paulson, CEO of Goldman Sachs?

Can't punish the people who help run and fund our government. You have to bail them out. :wassat1:

 

[chromium]

And yet how many people were arrested for participating in and causing the financial crisis of 2008?

oh, they just got tax free sales on their government bailed out stock and given "public salary appropriate" positions like treasury sec.....the same office that bailed them out in the first place! All this under a 'commie/socialist/arab/muslim' president

far more were arrested in iceland for their banking 'crisis'

 

[chromium]

Oh that's a different story. Those were people with insider connections to our government. Hell, one became Secretary of the Treasury.

You know, Henry Paulson, CEO of Goldman Sachs?

Can't punish the people who help run and fund our government. You have to bail them out. :wassat1:

well they don't call it government sachs for nothing

 

[d0gbreath]

And yet how many people were arrested for participating in and causing the financial crisis of 2008?

OUCH!

I don't think that any of these health-care fraudsters are too big to fail.

 

[apdst]

Some of the people involved in this fraud need to spend some time behind bars.

BS like this is part of the reason why medical care costs so much in the USA.

BS like this is the reason welfare programs cost the country so much money.

 

[WI Crippler]

I turned in my first boss for committing fraud. He was billing Medicare for treatment he didn't provide (to the point he billed treatment time for someone who went to the hospital and died at 6 AM even though he didn't show up to work until 8AM). I notified his superior and our company backed out the charges to Medicare immediately. And of course he was let go.

There were some other questionable charges. Likely the sum of his fraud was in the thousands (which wasn't actually billed). Not a bunch, but as a healthcare professional my regulations get tighter and tighter and strip away our ability to operate autonomously because of people like him.

 

[d0gbreath]

My hematologist got busted for double billing Medicare back in the late '90s. I wouldn't have known this except my wife vets everybody that we come into contact with.

I'm going to stick with him. He saved my life in 2012.

 

[ludin]

The biggest bust for Medicare fraud in US history. Almost a billion dollars worth of it.

As we like to say in Texas, get a rope, and hang 'em high.

Article is here.

This isn't funny but the exact reason that government shouldn't be in charge of healthcare.
who lets someone scam them out of 900m dollars? no one but the government.

 

[iguanaman]

Oh that's a different story. Those were people with insider connections to our government. Hell, one became Secretary of the Treasury.

You know, Henry Paulson, CEO of Goldman Sachs?

Can't punish the people who help run and fund our government. You have to bail them out. :wassat1:

That would be an appointment by President "foxes in every henhouse" Bush. Why are you surprised?

 

[fmw]

BS like this is the reason welfare programs cost the country so much money.

It certainly is one reason. However it pales in comparison to wasteful government. It is not much more than a blip. We need to attack the real problem.

 

[Captain Adverse]

That would be an appointment by President "foxes in every henhouse" Bush. Why are you surprised?

As opposed to:

Lloyd Benson: Secretary of the Treasury January 20, 1993 – December 22, 1994.

Bentsen moved to Houston, where he founded Consolidated American Life Insurance Company (Calico). He also served on the board of Lockheed Corporation as well as those of several oil and gas companies. He was successful in his business career, and became very secure financially. By 1970, he had become president of Lincoln Consolidated, a financial holding institution. Appointed to Clinton's cabinet as Treasury Secretary, Bentsen helped win crucial Republican votes to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Bentsen

Robert Rubin: Secretary of the Treasury January 11, 1995 – July 2, 1999

He served as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration. Before his government service, he spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs, eventually serving as a member of the board and co-chairman from 1990 to 1992; Rubin oversaw the loosening of financial industry underwriting guidelines which had been intact since the 1930s.[1] His most prominent post-government role was as director and senior counselor of Citigroup, where he performed ongoing advisory and representational roles for the firm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rubin

Lawrence Summers: Secretary of the Treasury July 2, 1999 – January 20, 2001

Summers hailed the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act in 1999, which lifted more than six decades of restrictions against banks offering commercial banking, insurance, and investment services (by repealing key provisions in the 1933 Glass–Steagall Act). Summers said. "This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy." Many critics, including President Barack Obama, have suggested the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis was caused by the partial repeal of the 1933 Glass–Steagall Act. Indeed, as a member of President Clinton's Working Group on Financial Markets, Summers, along with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Arthur Levitt, Fed Chairman Greenspan, and Secretary Rubin, torpedoed an effort to regulate the derivatives that many blame for bringing the financial market down in Fall 2008

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers

You mean THOSE "non-insiders?" :roll:

Presidents appoint individuals to the post of Secretary of the Treasury on the basis of past experience and presumed expertise. They usually come from the very institutions they are supposed to be monitoring. It seems they also typically bend over backwards to prevent those institutions from suffering much in the way of regulation... go figure. :coffeepap:

 

[eohrnberger]

Some of the people involved in this fraud need to spend some time behind bars.

BS like this is part of the reason why medical care costs so much in the USA.

The biggest bust for Medicare fraud in US history. Almost a billion dollars worth of it.

As we like to say in Texas, get a rope, and hang 'em high.

Article is here.

I work extensively with medicare (and medicaid) recipients.

This pisses me off to no end.

As an agent, we are regulated up the ying yang. I have no problem with it. The providers get away with **** like this every day.

I most whole heartily agree. These people are stealing from the communal pot, and as such, deserve no communal privileges nor respect.

I just wonder where all the arguments are against benefits fraud investigations and prosecutions as being too costly and not worth the effort?

 

[danarhea]

This isn't funny but the exact reason that government shouldn't be in charge of healthcare.
who lets someone scam them out of 900m dollars? no one but the government.

Um, it wasn't our government. It was the owners of health care corporations. It was our government that busted them.

 

[apdst]

It certainly is one reason. However it pales in comparison to wasteful government. It is not much more than a blip. We need to attack the real problem.

We need to go after all government waste.

 

[iguanaman]

Um, it wasn't our government. It was the owners of health care corporations. It was our government that busted them.

No one beats our Governor at medicare fraud. Scott's company still holds the record for fines levied. I suppose that is why he is in the top tier for Trumps VP. He knows how to "win"the Trump way.

 

[ajn678]

Um, it wasn't our government. It was the owners of health care corporations. It was our government that busted them.

His point is that there is very little oversight into spending because it is not the government that is responsible for the money. There is less incentive to find shady happenings when it is not your money on the line.

 

[ludin]

Um, it wasn't our government. It was the owners of health care corporations. It was our government that busted them.

You evidently didn't read my post. No real business would allow themselves to get scammed 900m dollars before they went HUH?
if they did then they deserve to go out of business on it.

yes the government allowed people to scam them out of 900m dollars. they will have a tough time getting it back because the money
is already gone.

it is the perfect example of why government needs to leave healthcare alone.

 

[Renae]

I work extensively with medicare (and medicaid) recipients.

This pisses me off to no end.

As an agent, we are regulated up the ying yang. I have no problem with it. The providers get away with **** like this every day.

The company my wife works for hates working with Medicare docs, they hardly ever get paid after its' said and done. All the hoops to jump through.

 

[earthworm]

Some of the people involved in this fraud need to spend some time behind bars.

BS like this is part of the reason why medical care costs so much in the USA.

So have more ''crooks per capita'' than any other nation ?
Sadly this may be true .. here, we can but guess .. I trust NOT our data .
AND , throw not the ''crooks'' into jail , but fine and penalize them , force them (via slave labor if necessary0, to repay society and our government..

 

[cpwill]

The company my wife works for hates working with Medicare docs, they hardly ever get paid after its' said and done. All the hoops to jump through.

A good point. Wouldn't it be interesting if it turned out that fraud is the only way to accept Medicare patients and still reliably make a profit?

 

[ttwtt78640]

Some of the people involved in this fraud need to spend some time behind bars.

BS like this is part of the reason why medical care costs so much in the USA.

Target (at least the store that I use) recently switched its in-house pharmacy to CVS control. When I last went to refill my $10 prescription I was shocked to learn that it now would cost me over $61. After I told them that I would never do business with them for raising their price over 600%, the clerk/pharmacist then asked what insurance I used. After I explained that I have no insurance and simply pay cash they decided (confessed?) that I could still pay the $10 price under a "CVS discount program". What this appears to be is a scam where insurance companies (agree to?) pay CVS over 600% more than a prescription is actually worth - someone is getting rich while others are getting screwed.