Failing Health: 30 Doctors, Nurses Busted for Medicare Fraud
Miami arrests were a part largest nationwide sting in history
More than 30 doctors and nurses were busted by the FBI.
Federal agents paid a doctor's visit to several healthcare practitioners Thursday as part of a major Medicare fraud bust that netted 30 arrests in Miami.
Doctors, nurses and physical therapists were among those rounded up for submitting phony claims to the federal program that resulted in tens of millions of dollars in paid benefits.
The suspects took advantage of their elderly patients by submitting claims to Medicare for services never performed.
The total bill: $225 million.
The Miami arrests were part of a nationwide sting designed to snuff out Medicare fraud.
In total over 100 healthcare providers were busted in what some federal officials are calling the largest single round up in U.S. history.
Two Miami doctors and several nurses from ABC Home Health Care Inc. were charged with swindling $25 million by writing fake prescriptions recommending nurses and other expensive aids to treat homebound patients, authorities said.
The services were never provided.
In total, nearly three dozen defendants were charged in Miami in various scams that topped about $56 million.
Thursday's totals exclude busts two days earlier in Miami that netted 21 suspects accused of bilking $200 million from Medicare.
"These unprecedented operations send a clear message. We will not tolerate criminals lining their pockets at the expense of Medicare patients and taxpayers," Health and Human Services Inspector General Daniel R. Levinson said.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC 6 Miami
