According to a released this earlier this morning, hours ahead of an official announcement scheduled for later today, arrests were made in Miami, Brooklyn and Detroit. Federal agents are expected to take about 30 suspects into custody from three states

Increasingly the manner in which the government promotes its law enforcement efforts in the Medicare arena sound more and more like military operations or even Saturday morning cartoons. The creation of the "Strike Force" known as HEAT, Health Care Fraud

In one of the recent pleas related to the government's new focus on Medicare fraud in Detroit, a physical therapist and two others pleaded guilty to approximately $2.5 million in Medicare Fraud related to physical and occupational therapy services. Click

A Jacksonville physician, Janet Johnson-Hunter, pleaded guilty to altering medical records to justify ambulance transportation of patients. Rather than have the case presented to a grand jury and require the government obtain an indictment, Dr. Hunter-Johnson waived that right and

In an interesting suit filed against Amgen, the maker of Epogen, as well as two large dialysis clinic chains, Fresenius and Davita, a whistleblower alleges that salespeople for the drug company told clinic operators and physicians working there to prescribe

According to Senator LeMieux of Florida, Florida is the health care fraud capital of the world and instead of reforming health care, the government should be focusing on fixing the current system, particularly targeting fraud waste and abuse. Meanwhile, federal

The growing issue of the number and vagueness of federal criminal statutes has led to a push back from even conservative groups, disdaining the over criminalization of federal law, leading one author to write a book arguing that each person

The federal agents arrested 20 people for a Palm Beach operation that engaged in buying up oxycontin from Broward County pain clinics and pharmacies and shipping those drugs to Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina . The operation

The FDA recently moved to shut down internet pharmacy "affiliate" websites in the United States . The Ryan Haight Act, passed in 2008 was the first effort to define the lawful and unlawful practice of telemedicine with respect to controlled

WASHINGTON (November 17, 2009) — Today President Barack Obama established by Executive Order an interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force (FFETF) to strengthen efforts to combat financial crime. According to a press release, the Department of Justice will lead the

Federal officials in charge of preventing fraud in the billion-dollar Medicare program ignored dozens of warnings of criminal activity during the Bush administration, according to by the Associated Press and U.S. Senator Charles Grassley's (R-IA) office.CMS received about 30 tips

CMS uses contractors to process claims, but also to use sophisticated software to detect fraud patterns and make referrals for claims denials, audits and criminal investigations. At one time the system was somewhat fragmented, given that there are different contractors

We have done posts on the various monikers given to task forces, including the most recent in healthcare fraud, HEAT (Healthcare Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Team) and the agencies in involved in those investigations; the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation),

Often, we hear that white collar crime is treated differently than other types of crime. However, it is often who commits white collar crime that brings about different treatment. I had a client indicted for fraud related to a DME.

Proposals to increase the criminal penalties for health care fraud are making their way into the Senate's health care reform bill. The proposal, The Health Care Fraud Enforcement Act, involves significant increases in potential jail time through modifications of the

Budget priorities and redirection of investigations at the state level, has led to a drop off in investigations of workers compensation fraud at a time when such fraud is increasing, according to investigators. The focus on Medicare and Medicaid fraud

A Federal False Claims Act Case filed by an employee of a dialysis center owned by Fresenius North America, which has over 1500 clinics serving dialysis patients, alleges that a clinics in El Paso and elsewhere used unlicensed employees to

In a Sixty Miutes piece on Medicare Fraud, reviewed by the HCFBlog , Steve Kroft claimed the government loses $60 Billion to health care fraud. The piece, otherwise quite good, then goes on to describe some of what we have

After 15 long months of hard word work, West Publishing is almost ready to release my book. The book is expected to be released before the end of the month. In the mean while, the publisher just sent me a

Part of the Health Care Fraud Task Force initiative in Miami, Houston, Detroit and Los Angeles has met with some success, and not so coincidently some of the cases have Miami roots. The related to a plea in a in