Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Miami Herald - October 1, 2008
Jay Weaver, jweaver@MiamiHerald.com
Healthcare fraud is "massive" in South Florida, the region's top federal prosecutor said Tuesday.
But the creation of a federal Medicare Fraud Strike Force -- led by South Florida and Justice Department prosecutors and FBI and Health and Human Services agents -- has boosted the number of prosecutions.
In the 12 months that ended Tuesday, 245 South Florida defendants were charged with filing almost $793.5 million in false Medicare claims, U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said.
Last year, 197 defendants were prosecuted on charges of submitting $638 million in bogus charges to the U.S. government's health insurance program for the elderly and disabled. And in fiscal 2006, 111 defendants were indicted on charges of billing $138 million in phony claims.
"We're getting much better at catching them," Acosta said at a news conference to tout local, state and federal efforts to crack down on Medicare offenders.
Most of the cases in the past three years have resulted in convictions, but the government has recovered little of the Medicare millions paid to the perpetrators because they spent it so quickly on lavish lifestyles.
Most of the prosecutions involved medical equipment operators and HIV clinics, and have cemented South Florida's reputation as the nation's Medicare fraud capital.
In August, The Miami Herald reported in a series of articles that those two healthcare fields account for at least $2.5 billion in fraudulent Medicare claims yearly. The estimate is conservative because it does not include potential fraud in hospital, home healthcare and drug-prescription billings to the government program.
Acosta acknowledged that more prosecutions are not the entire solution. He stressed that Medicare as an agency should be more aggressive in denying suspicious claims.
"The only way we're going to stop the fraud is through prevention," he said.
Also on Tuesday, the U.S. attorney's office spotlighted a similar crackdown on mortgage fraud cases this year, saying it had prosecuted 112 defendants accused of seeking $176.6 million in fraudulent loans.
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