U.S. Attorney Reports Increase In Number Of South Florida Medicare Fraud Prosecutions

Main Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Also Included In: Litigation / Medical Malpractice
Article Date: 06 Oct 2008 - 5:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

In the past 12 months, 245 South Florida defendants have been charged with filing nearly $793.5 million in false Medicare claims, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida R. Alexander Acosta said on Tuesday, the Miami Herald reports. Acosta credited the federal Medicare Fraud Strike Force for increasing the number of prosecutions. In 2007, 197 defendants were prosecuted on charges of submitting $638 million in false Medicare claims, and 111 defendants in 2006 were indicted on charges of billing $138 million in false claims, the Herald reports.

Most of the prosecutions involved medical equipment operators and HIV clinics. Acosta said, "We're getting much better at catching them." However, Acosta said that increased efforts to prosecute offenders will not resolve the problem and that CMS should be more aggressive in detecting and rejecting claims that raise suspicion. "The only way we're going to stop the fraud is through prevention," he said (Weaver, Miami Herald, 10/1).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2008 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation.  All rights reserved.