U.S. charges more than 400 in health fraud schemes
WASHINGTON — More than 400 people have been charged with taking part in health care fraud and opioid scams that totaled $1.3 billion in false billing, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Thursday.
Mr. Sessions called the collective action the “largest health care fraud takedown operation in American history” and said it indicates that some doctors, nurses and pharmacists “have chosen to violate their oaths and put greed ahead of their patients.”
Mr. Sessions said the operation began with tips from people in the affected communities and from “very sophisticated computer programs that identify outliers.”
The investigation particularly focused on medical professionals who were involved in the unlawful distribution of opioids and other prescription narcotics, officials said.
Arrests were made in cities including Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles as well as in southern Florida, which is home to hundreds of residential drug addiction treatment centers.
Among those charged are six Michigan doctors accused of a scheme to prescribe unnecessary opioids. A Florida rehab facility is alleged to have recruited addicts with gift cards and visits to strip clubs, leading to $58 million in false treatments and tests.
Officials said those charged in the schemes include more than 120 people involved in illegally prescribing and distributing narcotic painkillers. Such prescription opioids are behind the deadliest drug overdose epidemic in U.S. history. More than 52,000 Americans died of overdoses in 2015 — a record — and experts believe the numbers have continued to rise.
“In some cases, we had addicts packed into standingroom-only waiting rooms waiting for these prescriptions,” acting FBI director Andrew McCabe said. “They are a death sentence, plain and simple.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said the Trump administration is committed to combating the crisis in other ways besides enforcement. Many people are not getting into recovery programs, he said.
In West Virginia, he said, “one firefighter revived the same young lady three times in one day. That’s a system that is failing that individual.”
Nearly 300 health care providers are being suspended or banned from participating in federal health care programs, Mr. Sessions said.
“They seem oblivious to the disastrous consequences of their greed. Their actions not only enrich themselves, often at the expense of taxpayers, but also feed addictions and cause addictions to start,” Mr. Sessions said.
Health care fraud sweeps like Thursday’s happen each year across the country, but law enforcement officials continue to grapple over the best way to fight the problem.