A $50 million federal Medicare fraud involving 53 defendants has netted arrests in Detroit, Miami, and Denver, reports the Detroit News. It is a collection of eight cases involving physical therapy and injection or infusion therapy clinics. A common thread is that patients received kickbacks for use of their Medicare numbers; the federal health care program for the aged and disabled was billed for services that were never provided; and the hefty spoils were shared among a group of clinic owners, doctors, recruiters and other co-conspirators, said grand jury indictments unsealed yesterday.
Attorney General Eric Holder and other top federal officials used the Detroit case to highlight an initiative of the Obama administration — a task force charged with wiping out health care waste, fraud and abuse. Computer analyses of Medicare data to find “hot spots” of suspicious high-volume Medicare billings led to formation of task forces in Detroit, Miami, Houston, and Los Angeles.