Largest Fraud Bust Brings 455 Indictments

The Justice Department just announced that 455 defendants have been charged in the largest healthcare fraud sting in U.S. history, totaling $6.5 billion stolen from American taxpayers. Federal officials say that the fraud spans Medicaid, Medicare, and healthcare and hospice businesses across the United States.

As reported by The Wall Street Journal:

The Justice Department on Tuesday is expected to unveil charges against around 450 defendants for alleged healthcare fraud totaling over $6.5 billion as part of the Trump administration’s stepped-up antifraud efforts.

The announcement includes charges against 90 medical professionals and targets a range of alleged healthcare fraud schemes, such as wound care and opioid distribution. It also includes what officials said is a record number of Medicaid fraud defendants, with nearly 300 people accused of submitting over $500 million in false Medicaid claims.

Federal officials said the operation spanned 57 federal court districts and 41 states and territories, involving 46 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units in what they described as the department’s largest coordinated antifraud effort to date. They added that authorities seized more than $127 million in cash, luxury vehicles, jewelry and other assets.

In one of the cases, prosecutors charged the owner of several healthcare businesses in the Los Angeles area, including at least four hospices, with a scheme that they say involved paying kickbacks and bribes to enroll people who weren’t actually terminally ill in hospice care. Prosecutors allege the scheme resulted in nearly $27.7 million in fraudulent Medicare claims for medically unnecessary hospice services, with Medicare paying about $26.9 million.

According to the indictment, prosecutors allege the scheme involved enrolling deceased Medicare beneficiaries in hospice after their deaths using stolen personal information obtained through a funeral home employee, and creating backdated medical records to make it appear the patients had qualified for hospice before they died . . . Officials said the Los Angeles case illustrates the types of complex fraud schemes the department is seeking to identify earlier through new investigative tools and expanded coordination across agencies.

“This was a concerted effort to stay under the radar, and it indicates the cat-and-mouse game that we’re involved in,” said Jacob Foster, acting chief of the Justice Department’s Health Care Fraud Unit.

Just to remind you, this isn’t a replay. This is another round of indictments in other healthcare fraud schemes that the DOJ has uncovered, along with the HHS, against 90 medical professionals and accomplices running a range of alleged healthcare fraud schemes. This is being described as the Administration’s largest coordinated anti-fraud effort to date, by far.

It shows that the DOJ and the HHS and the various Executive branch departments are actively going after this fraud. It also comes up at the very time that you see the media focused on tearing down the Administration.

These are the kind of results the American people want to see. With this crackdown just on the heels of last year’s $14.6 billion healthcare fraud bust, it shows this Administration is doing what it said it would.

The American people are tired of their money being stolen. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, which the American people want to see preserved for future generations, is being stolen from them, in many cases, right under the local leaders’ noses. These programs can’t be protected or preserved until you eliminate all the fraud. This is a big move by the Trump Administration, and a win for all hard-working, law-abiding American people

Today’s Sekulow broadcast included more discussion of this huge crackdown on healthcare fraud in America. We were also joined by U.S. Special Presidential Envoy Ric Grenell, who provided his insight, particularly regarding fraud in his home state of California, as well as a quick update on where things currently stand with Iran.

Watch the full broadcast below: