Healthcare Crimes Related to Covid-19

 

Healthcare Criminals-2021 

In March of 2021, the Department of Justice announced a coordinated law enforcement Covid-19 Task Force to bring pandemic charlatans to justice and charges for nearly 2 billion have been filed, for doctors, laboratories, and pharmacies. (United States Department of Justice, 2021) The scams fall into three primary areas, telemedicine fraud, running unnecessary tests, and prescription fraud. The United States Attorney’s Office has convicted many people for pandemic related healthcare crimes from 2020 and this is a brief anthology of the more egregious convictions. (United States Department of Justice, 2021) . Though special mention goes to the ethically bankrupt Sackler family, which was not pandemic related and is therefor, not included in the table. It is important to note that ethical people still exist because internal whistleblowers were responsible for 73% of these convictions leading to the recovered funds. The U.S. government was able to claw-back over a billion dollars from corporate healthcare entities, including multinationals, and two-hundred-sixty-four million from individual grifters. (Land, 2021)

 Financial Recovery of Healthcare Fraud-2020 Convictions

Company	Crime	Restitution
Novartis	Payments (bribes) to doctors to prescribe their drugs	$ 591,000,000
Practice Fusion	Accepted payments from Purdue Pharma to increase opioid use	$ 145,000,000
Novartis	Illegally paid copays for their drugs through a foundation, with the appearance of independence; as an inducement	$ 148,000,000
Universal Health Services	False claims for mental health services	$ 117,000,000
Oklahoma Center for Orthopedic and Multi-specialty Surgery	Hospital-paid kickbacks to physicians for referrals	$   72,000,000
UTC Laboratories (RenRX)	Kickbacks for lab referrals	$   41,600,000
ResMed Corp	Paid kickbacks for medical equipment suppliers, sleep labs, and health care providers	$   37,000,000
Subtotal		$1,151,600,000
Individual Assessments	Crime	Restitution
Health Management Associates	Hospital group convicted of false billing and kickbacks	$ 260,000,000
Glen Kline, DO, Community Surgical Associates	Kickbacks from HMA (one of the nation’s largest for-profit hospital groups) for surgeries	$     4,250,000
Subtotal		$   264,000,000
Grand Total Recovered		$1,415,6000,000

 Human suffering is never complete without the opportunists and charlatans. I note that HMA, one of the nation's largest for-profit hospital groups, was previously convicted of one of the largest Medicare frauds in US history, and of course, theformer head of that company is now a Senator from Florida. And this is the healthpolicymaven signing off wishing you a healthy new year!

 This column has been in continuous publication since 2007. Roberta Winter is an independent healthcare journalist who accepts no money from any healthcare, pharmaceutical, insurance, or medical device entity. She encourages you not to sign blanket release forms when agreeing to medical procedures, do stipulate that for which you agree and which you decline.

 References

Land, H. (2021, January 15). DOJ Recovers 1.8 billion in healthcare fraud settlements, judgements in 2020. Retrieved from Fierce Health.com: https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/feds-recover-1-8b-from-false-claims-act-cases-2020

United States Department of Justice. (2021, May 26). Coordinated Task Force to Combat Healthcare Fraud Related to Covid 19. Retrieved December 31, 2021, from Department of Justice: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/doj-announces-coordinated-law-enforcement-action-combat-health-care-fraud-related-covid-19

United States Department of Justice. (2021, September 17). National Health Care Fraud Enforcement Action Results in Charges Involving over $1.4 Billion in Alleged Losses. Retrieved from United States Department of Justice: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/national-health-care-fraud-enforcement-action-results-charges-involving-over-14-billion