Jeff Sessions has announced charges against 601 people for fraudulent medical claims.
The Washington Examiner reports:
The Justice Department on Thursday announced its largest-ever healthcare fraud enforcement action, and charged 601 people, including 165 medical professions, for making false medical claims worth $2 billion, a quarter of which was related to opioids.
“This is the most fraud, the most defendants, and the most doctors ever charged in a single operation — and we have evidence that our ongoing work has stopped or prevented billions of dollars’ worth of fraud,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement about the Medicare Fraud Strike Force’s work over the past year.
His agency charged the 601 defendants with submitting bogus claims to Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, and private insurance companies, more than one-quarter were for prescribing or distributing opioids and other narcotics. A total of 13 million illegal doses of opioids were issued, the Justice Department said.
“Health care fraud is a betrayal of vulnerable patients, and often it is theft from the taxpayer,” Sessions said. “In many cases, doctors, nurses, and pharmacists take advantage of people suffering from drug addiction in order to line their pockets. These are despicable crimes.”
This is a great blow against scammers who drive healthcare costs for all Americans.
We must send these robbers to prison for long terms to STOP more crooks from ruining our medical system. Anything good will be tapped into by unethical people, who must be jailed for fairly long times. We need brutal examples to stop this NOW.
TWO BILLION stolen from Medicaid and Medicare and we old timers are “FORCED” to cough up more money EVERY YEAR from our PAID FOR social security payments. Medical deductions for the past three years have taken 100% of our supposed Soc. Sec. increase. Arrest ALL responsible and invite soc. sec. recipients to watch these criminals fighting the lions in an old fashioned Roman amphitheater