Free Republic

The federal government funneled billions in subsidies to software vendors who overstated or deceived the government about what their products could do, according to whistleblowers.(LYDIA ZURAW/KHN) This story also ran on Fortune. This story can be republished for free (details). Derek Lewis was working as an electronic health records specialist for the nation’s largest hospital chain when he heard about software defects that might even “kill a patient.” The doctors at Midwest (City) Regional Medical Center in Oklahoma worried that the software failed to track some drug prescriptions or dosages properly, posing a “huge safety concern,” Lewis said. Lewis cited...

Full Title: Head of New York Medical Clinics Found Guilty in Nearly $100 Million Money Laundering and Health Care Kickback Scheme Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, November 15, 2019 The manager in control of multiple medical clinics in Brooklyn and Queens, New York, was found guilty today for his role in a nearly $100 million health care kickback and money laundering scheme.  After a two-week trial, Aleksandr Pikus, 44, of Brooklyn, was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, two counts of money laundering, one count of conspiracy to receive and...

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, October 18, 2019 Former Osteo Relief Institutes and Their Owners to Pay Over $7.1 Million to Resolve Allegations of Unnecessary Knee Injections and Braces Seven former Osteo Relief Institutes (ORIs) and their owners have agreed to pay the United States collectively more than $7.1 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations that they knowingly billed Medicare for medically unnecessary viscosupplementation injections and medically unnecessary knee braces, the Justice Department announced today. “Billing Medicare for medically unnecessary items and procedures puts patients at risk and wastes taxpayer funds,” said Assistant...

More than 400 people have been charged with taking part in health care fraud and opioid scams that totaled $1.3 billion in false billing, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Thursday. Sessions called the collective action the "largest health care fraud takedown operation in American history" and said it indicates that some doctors, nurses and pharmacists "have chosen to violate their oaths and put greed ahead of their patients."

Democrats from President Obama on down have been touting Obamacare's sign-up numbers. Even after the system's disastrous rollout, they like to point out, roughly three million people have signed up for private insurance, while 6.3 million have signed up for Medicaid. "Already, because of the Affordable Care Act, more than nine million Americans have signed up for private health insurance or Medicaid coverage," Obama said in the State of the Union speech. "Nine million." The number is a little larger now, since the figures are a few weeks old. But there is strong new evidence to suggest the administration's claims...

SAN DIEGO (CNS) - A Spring Valley woman pleaded guilty Friday to taking part in a multi-year scheme to falsify medical certifications while working as an advocate for immigrants seeking help in obtaining U.S. citizenship or government benefits. Nawal Talia, 57, admitted during a hearing in federal court in San Diego that she recruited patients for National City psychologist Roberto Velasquez, who was sentenced earlier this year to 21 months in prison and ordered to repay more than $1.5 million to the Social Security Administration in the largest single restitution order in the agency's history. As part of her job,...

The Affordable Care Act is So Unaffordable, Members of Congress and Their Aides are Quitting Because They Can't Afford It! BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, this is truly outrageous. There's a headline in The Politico today: "Obamacare? We Were Just Leaving..." And when I saw the headline, I thought it was gonna be an article about how Democrats are afraid of losing their seats because of all the skyrocketing costs of health premiums and all the other negatives associated with Obamacare. But that's not what this story is about. What this story's about is congressmen worried about themselves. In...

Health-care fraud, especially insurance scams, costs Americans an estimated $80 billion each year, according to the FBI. And boomers in particular get hit hard: having to pay the price of scams targeted to them, to uninsured older workers and others aimed at the aging parents they are caring for. The loss of a job, and with it employer health benefits, can make people desperate and more susceptible to private health schemes that promises big coverage but often provides few benefits and many loopholes. “Crooks are peddling fake or stripped-down policies camouflaged as full-benefit coverage. Pushy salespeople are preying on people’s...

HAMMOND, IN—The United States Attorney's Office announced Dr. Adolph Yaniz, and Munir Chaudhry, d/b/a Medway Diagnostic Laboratories, were charged by an indictment unsealed today with conspiracy to commit health care fraud. Yaniz, 49, of Merrillville, Indiana, and Chaudhry, 63, of Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, were charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud health care programs and four counts of substantive health care fraud violations. Yaniz was also charged with one count of receiving kickbacks, four counts of dispensing drugs without legitimate medical purposes, and one count of conspiracy to distribute Vicodin. Chaudhry was also charged with one count of paying...

HOUSTON—The owner of City Nursing Services of Texas Inc., an alleged Houston physical therapy clinic, has been indicted for conspiring to commit health care fraud, health care fraud, mail fraud and money laundering arising from an alleged multi-million dollar health care fraud scheme, United States Attorney Tim Johnson and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced today. The 36-count indictment was returned by a federal grand jury this morning. Umawa Oke Imo, 54, a permanent resident alien in the U.S. and native of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, was taken into federal custody on Friday June 26, 2009, following the filing...

Geoffrey Ramseur, 52, of Rockledge, Florida (formerly of Northville, Michigan), was sentenced yesterday to 20 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $121,000.00 after having been convicted on health care fraud charges, announced United States Attorney Terrence Berg. Mr. Berg was joined in the announcement by Special Agent Andrew G. Arena, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Detroit Field Division. On November 7, 2008, Ramseur pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud against Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan (“BC/BS-MI”) before Judge Denise Page Hood. According to court records, during 2002-2004, Ramseur was a chiropractor who conducted...

Federal and state authorities this morning arrested 20 defendants accused of being part of ring that defrauded Medi-Cal out of nearly $4.6 million by using unlicensed individuals to provide in-home care to scores of disabled patients, many of them children with cerebral palsy or developmental disabilities. The 20 defendants arrested this morning are among 42 defendants named in a 41-count indictment that was returned by a federal grand jury on June 25. The indictment is part of an investigation called Operation License Integrity, a two-year investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Health and Human...

ATLANTA, GA—CHAUNSAY BECKWITH, 46, of Tucker, Georgia, was sentenced today by Senior United States District Judge Marvin H. Shoob to serve nearly 5 years in federal prison on a charge of health care fraud. United States Attorney David E. Nahmias said of the case, “Hyperbaric chambers have a number of legitimate medical uses, as varied as helping burn victims and scuba divers in their recovery. This defendant turned a hyperbaric chamber into a scheme for generating over a million dollars in fraudulent claims. Health care fraud raises the costs of health care for everyone, and those responsible for such fraud...

BANGOR,MAINE - A Caribou physician pleaded not guilty Friday to 118 counts of health care fraud, obstructing an investigation, making false claims and other charges.Bail for Dr. Osama El-Sayed Abdella El-Silimy was set at $200,000 in U.S. District Court. U.S. Magistrate Judge Margaret Kravchuk gave the ear, nose and throat specialist until next week to post bail, which is expected to include a combination of property and cash. El-Silimy, who is a British citizen, also was ordered to surrender his passport. A federal grand jury indicted him Aug. 11. The charges stem from an investigation begun in May 2001 by...

He's given hundreds of flu shots over the past few months, but health officials say he isn't a doctor and they still don't know exactly what he's been injecting. It's a story you saw First on News 3. Shahid Shiekh is under police investigation after shutting down one of his clinics in Washington State. News 3 has learned that Shiekh has also operated an office in Henderson. News 3's Kori Chambers is digging deeper. It's still unclear whether this phony doctor fooled any Las Vegans. We spoke with Shiekh's attorney and asked him point blank whether the man was giving...