U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland talking on June 22, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
The Department of Justice introduced Wednesday that it has not too long ago charged 78 people with $2.5 billion in separate health-care fraud and opioid abuse schemes.
The defendants allegedly defrauded packages used to care for aged and disabled people, and in some instances used the ill-gotten cash to purchase unique automobiles, jewellery, and yachts, the DOJ stated.
Among these charged are 11 defendants accused of submitting $2 billion in fraudulent claims by means of telemedicine, in addition to 10 defendants charged in connection with fraudulent prescription drug claims.
In all, prosecutors filed charges towards people in 16 states in instances that had been lodged or unsealed in the previous two weeks as a part of the coordinated crackdown.
The defendants embody “physicians and different licensed medical professionals who lined their very own pockets, together with docs who allegedly put their sufferers in danger by illegally offering them with opioids they didn’t want,” the DOJ stated in a press launch.
Attorney General Merrick Garland in an announcement stated, “These enforcement actions, together with towards one of many largest well being care fraud schemes ever prosecuted by the Justice Department, symbolize our intensified efforts to fight fraud and prosecute the people who revenue from it.”
In the scheme cited by Garland, executives of supposed software program and providers corporations submitted $1.9 billion in fraudulent claims to Medicare for gadgets that weren’t eligible for reimbursement, in line with the DOJ.
The defendants in that case embody Brett Blackman and Gregory Schreck of Johnson County, Kansas and Gary Cox of Maricopa County, Arizona, who allegedly used mass telemarketing operations to promote the aged and disabled pointless medical tools and prescriptions, in line with an indictment in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
The trio allegedly operated a software program platform known as DMERx that generated faux and fraudulent docs’ orders in alternate for unlawful kickbacks and bribes.
Blackman was CEO of the corporate that operated the software program and Schreck was vp of enterprise improvement. Cox was CEO of the corporate that beforehand ran the platform earlier than a company acquisition.
This is a growing story. Please verify again for updates.
