Feds charge 107 people in $452 million Medicare fraud crackdown

(CBS News) In the biggest crackdown of Medicare fraud in history, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Wednesday that the Medicare Fraud Strike Force had uncovered $452 million dollars worth of false billings in seven cities across the nation.

More than 100 people have been arrested in relation to the fraud, including doctors, nurses and social workers.

"This is the highest amount of alleged false Medicare billings involved in a single takedown in the Strike Force's five-year history," said Holder, speaking alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Sebelius, who credited the Affordable Care Act with strengthening the ability to go after Medicare fraud, said "no one who has been part of an illegal scheme can keep cashing in."

Among the alleged practices used to defraud Medicare include health care providers busing in homeless people who never got treatment and ambulance companies charging for bogus emergencies.

In one scheme, workers at two community health centers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana falsified patient signatures and treatment notes in order to fraudulently bill Medicare for $225 million dollars in medical services that were never received.

[gep1955]

If true this is a good start. Billions are being stolen annually. What do you suppose will be the fraud level if Obamacare goes through?

[Yeah_Its_Me]

So how many Republicans are among the doctors ripping off Medicare? I have a feeling doctors are heavily Republican...

[Lindag10]

No wonder Medicare is going broke, since so many people in the health care industry seem to think it's their "duty" to rip the system off.

[Yeah_Its_Me]

People have been saying Medicare is imminently going broke for longer than I've been alive....

[ammo17]

getting close to election time our goverment is finally doing what they should have been doing for the last 40 months.

[slatep]

Now all they have to do is try and collect it.

FAT CHANCE.!!

[Old-Redneck-Cowboy]

A Federal tax lien on the private assets of doctors involved should do the trick.

Medicare fraud has become common practice. I know of one instance first hand. My 89 year old mother's Medicare account was billed repeatedly for a bone density test that was never performed. When I asked the doctor's office how they could possibly bill Medicare without any test results on file, they said they bill Medicare when a test is ordered, not after it is performed. How's that for a business model? I wish I could bill my customers for things I'm going to do later!