WASHINGTON – Nearly 200 people have been charged in a sweeping nationwide crackdown on healthcare fraud schemes, with false claims amounting to $2.7 billion, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced charges against doctors, nurses and others across the U.S. accused of a variety of frauds, including a $900 million scheme in Arizona targeting terminally ill patients.
“No matter whether you are a drug dealer for a drug cartel or a corporate executive or medical professional employed by a healthcare company, if you profit from the illegal distribution of controlled substances, you will be held accountable,” Garland said in a statement. declaration.
In the Arizona case, prosecutors accused two owners of wound care companies of accepting more than $330 million in bribes as part of a scheme to fraudulently bill Medicare for amniotic wound grafts, which are bandages to help heal wounds. .
Nurses were pressured to give the grafts to elderly patients who didn’t need them, including people in hospice care, the Justice Department said. Some patients died the day they received the grafts or within a few days, court documents say.
In less than two years, more than $900 million in false claims were submitted to Medicare for grafts that were used in fewer than 500 patients, prosecutors said.
Wound care company owners Alexandra Gehrke and Jeffrey King were arrested this month at Phoenix airport as they boarded a flight to London, according to court documents asking a judge to keep them behind bars while they await trial. . An attorney for Gehrke declined to comment, and an attorney for King did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press.
Authorities allege that Gehrke and King, who married this year, knew the charges were coming and were preparing to flee. In his home, authorities found a book titled “How to Disappear: Erase Your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trails and Disappear Without a Trace,” according to court documents. “Criminal Law Manual: Know your rights, survive the system”, say the newspapers.
Gehrke and King lived lavishly from the scheme, prosecutors allege, citing in court documents luxury cars, a nearly $6 million home and more than $520,000 in gold bars, coins and jewelry. Authorities seized more than $52 million from Gehrke’s personal and business bank accounts after his arrest, prosecutors say.
In total, 193 people were charged in a series of separate cases filed over about two weeks in the nationwide health care fraud operation. Authorities seized more than $230 million in cash, luxury cars and other assets. The Department of Justice periodically conducts these comprehensive health care fraud efforts with the goal of helping to deter other potential offenders.
In another case in Arizona, a woman is accused of billing the state Medicaid agency for substance abuse treatment services that served no real purpose or were never provided, prosecutors say.
Another case alleges a scheme in Florida to distribute misbranded HIV medications. Prosecutors say the drugs were purchased on the black market and resold to unsuspecting pharmacies, which then supplied the drugs to patients.
In some cases, patients received bottles that contained medications other than those indicated on the label. A patient ended up unconscious for 24 hours after taking what he was led to believe was his HIV medication but was actually an antipsychotic medication, prosecutors say.
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