Report: Record $2.5 billion recovered from Medicare fraud cases

[Joanne98]

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN) -- The federal government recovered a record total of more than $2.5 billion from health care fraud last year, according to a government report issued Monday.

Results reflect both the continuing array of efforts to swindle the government Medicare program and a stepped-up effort by law enforcement to combat them, officials said.

The 84-page annual joint report by the departments of Justice and Health and Human Services is the 14th annual report mandated by Congress after a health care law established a Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli said the funds recovered and returned to the Medicare Trust Fund represent a successful return on investment of nearly $5 seized for every dollar spent on programs to fight fraud.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/24/us.health.care.fraud/

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The thieves were probably all Republicans too.

[Frustratedlady]

1. Good for them. I hope they continue the good work, as we all know

there has to be a lot of fraud involved.

Same goes for a lot of these "charities" -- many of them run by Repugs in Texas, as I recall. They rent a post office box, fix up a fancy brochure and send out a request for money on the Internet. Shoot, they don't even have to buy a stamp.

[tabatha]

2. Well done, Kathleen Sibelius.

[gratuitous]

3. The story buries the lede quite nicely

When most folks read about "Medicare fraud," who do you suppose they're going to think of defrauding Medicare? Patients, that's who. And yet, it takes five paragraphs before you get to the culprits:

Overcharges to the Medicare program included a variety of invoices submitted by doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical and device manufacturers.

And don't think for a second that the crackdown on Medicare fraud will be left alone by our Republican friends. They just won't bother to tell you who's committing the fraud. They'll be quite happy to let people think that it's their friends, neighbors and relatives chiseling the Medicare program, rather than the fatcats who fund Republican campaigns.

[mopinko]

8. i dunno. that's not what i think of.

i don't think others think that, either.

[jwirr]

10. You are right about what people think, especially repug people. But

it does not take even half a brain to figure out that there is no way for it to be the people. We are not the ones the money is sent to thus we have no way. It should also be noted that most of the professionals who serve us are also not defrauding the government. They are good honest practitioners who are glad that these programs exist. They are the descendants of the old prairie doctor who gave away his services to those who could not pay. Most of my doctors have indicated that they support Medicare and Medicaid.

[gratuitous]

11. Yes, but the Republicans and their echo chamber don't target people with half a brain

Of course it couldn't be the patients defrauding Medicare, and I'd argue that far more than most care providers are decent and honest. This is indeed a case of a few bad apples. But just as it suited certain segments of the information media to imply (or say outright) that the mortgage bubble was and is the fault of poor people bullying the hapless fatcats of finance, I have little doubt that "Medicare fraud" will quickly pass into the public conversation to mean individuals chiseling the system for care they don't need or aren't "entitled" to. It certainly won't make any sense, but I've seen that as no impediment to furthering the political agenda of certain segments of our society.

[Judi Lynn]

4. I'm sure you're right, Joanne98. No doubt many remember Jeb Bush's "exile" friend's Medicare fraud.

Bush Family Value$
The Bush clan's family business
— By Stephen Pizzo

~snip~
Jeb and Miguel Recarey

With Miami awash in empty office space in 1986, it was no small event when bagged International Medical Centers as a key tenant for Padreda's HUD-financed building. IMC, which leased nearly all the space in Padreda's vacant building, was at the time one of the nation's fastest-growing health-maintenance organizations (HMO) and had become the largest recipient of federal Medicare funds.

IMC was run by Cuban-American Miguel Recarey, a character with a host of idiosyncrasies. He carried a 9-mm Heckler & Koch semiautomatic pistol under his suit coat and kept a small arsenal of AR-15 and Uzi assault rifles at his Miami estate, where his bedroom was protected by bullet-proof windows and a steel door. It apparently wasn't his enemies Recarey feared so much as his friends. He had a long-standing relationship with Miami Mafia godfather Santo Trafficante, Jr., and had participated in the illfated, CIA-inspired mob assassination plot against Fidel Castro in the early 1960s. (Associates of Recarey add that Trafficante was the money behind Recarey's business ventures.)

Recarey's brother, Jorge, also had ties to the CIA. So it was no surprise that IMC crawled with former spooks. Employee résumés were studded with references to the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Cuban Intelligence agency; there was even a fellow who claimed to have been a KGB agent, An agent with the U.S. Office of Labor Racketeering in Miami would later describe IMC as a company in which "a criminal enterprise interfaced with intelligence operations."

Recarey also surrounded himself with those who could influence the political system. He hired Jeb Bush as IMC's "real-estate consultant." Though Jeb would never close a single real-estate deal, his contract called for him to earn up to $250,000 (he actually received $75,000). Jeb's real value to Recarey was not in real estate but in his help in facilitating the largest HMO Medicare fraud in U.S. history.

Jeb phoned top Health and Human Services officials in Washington in 1985 to lobby for a special exemption from HHS rules for IMC. This highly unusual waiver was critical to Recarey's scam. Without it, the company would have been limited to a Medicare patient load of 50 percent. The balance of IMC's patients would have had to be private -- that is, paying -- customers. Recarey preferred the steady flow of federal Medicare money to the thought of actually running a real HMO. Former HHS chief of staff McClain Haddow (who later became a paid consultant to IMC) testified in 1987 Jeb that directly phoned then-HHS secretary Margaret Heckler and that it was that call that swung the decision to approve IMCs waiver.

More:
http://motherjones.com/politics/1992/09/bush-family-value

Recarey's crime was the largest in U.S. Medicare history, at the time.

The Miami area is THE area of the U.S. notorious for Medicare fraud, and it is completely dominated by the Cuban right-wing "exile" reactionaries, who've been up to their right-wing noses in U.S. white collar crime for decades.

[wilt the stilt]

5. Rick Scott

are these your friends?

[HowHasItComeToThis]

6. THE GREATEST FRAUD IS THE SPINAL ADJUSTMENT

DAMN THE CHIROPRACTORS

[seafan]

7. Not to mention the $1.7 billion fine of the company headed by the crook in the FL Governor's office

Report: Record $2.5 billion recovered from Medicare fraud cases in 2010, January 24, 2011


Whistleblowers Say Rick Scott Knew About 1997 Medicare Fraud, June 18, 2010


And, of course, he is a Republican. Now he's occupying the Florida Governor's mansion.


Florida is in dire straits. Come spend some time here, Ms. Sebelius.

[uberblonde]

9. Try to hold back the joy.

I've already read part of this. One of the things they considered "fraud" was keeping elderly people with multiple health problems in the hospital overnight to monitor them before surgery -- even though Medicare said it should have been a one-day procedure.

[Crowman1979]

12. Medicare will save even more money once the Teabaggers give it up voluntarily.

[valerief]

13. Did they find the TWO TRILLION Rumsfeld lost as of 9/10/01?

[bemildred]

14. Something useful that could be done with all the money that is pissed away on the drug war. nt