The Trump administration’s war on fraud just landed one of its biggest blows yet. The Justice Department on Thursday announced charges against 15 defendants, including six medical professionals, in Los Angeles health care fraud schemes that allegedly produced about $2 billion in fraudulent claims to government and private health care programs. “BUSTED,” the White House declared.
The centerpiece is a scheme that allegedly billed more than $1.6 billion for sham substance abuse treatment, the largest case of its type ever prosecuted by the Department. Prosecutors say the operators used “body brokers” to target vulnerable people, including the homeless, lured them to California with free flights, cash and housing, and then recycled them through their facilities to keep billing insurance.
Prosecutors also charged schemes involving $134 million billed to Medicare for unnecessary artery procedures that injured patients, and more than $138 million in hospice fraud where the patients were not terminally ill.
“This morning we executed five arrests and conducted one search warrant in the Los Angeles area, arrested one subject in Chicago and two subjects in Dallas,” FBI Los Angeles Acting Special Agent in Charge Jeremy Stebbins said. “Health care fraud is not a victimless crime.” The defendants, he said, “allegedly promised substance abuse treatment to victims, but provided the opposite, ensuring that they stayed addicted.”
The charges are allegations, and every defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty. But the message from this administration is unmistakable: fraudsters who steal from taxpayers and prey on the vulnerable will be found and prosecuted.
