7 Hospitals in New York Accused of $50M Medicaid Fraud
AP reports:
Four hospitals in New York state paid kickbacks to get more patients into their drug treatment programs, which billed Medicaid for services that weren’t standard or necessary and lacked state certification, lawsuits allege.
Kickbacks? Too wasteful when your competitors are using more-cost-efficient methods:
Another hospital paid people to search homeless shelters and other places for patients to enter a three-day stay in detox in exchange for cigarettes, beer, food, and other items, according to the lawsuit brought by state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell.
Via Lucianne, whose commenter links to another AP report, from two weeks ago:
Three days a week Philip Audette sat in a cushy white chair at the St. Jude Rehab Center, a needle pumping HIV drugs into his arm. He talked and laughed with a dozen other patients, all in good health, all receiving drugs they didn’t need. For the money.
Audette says he made $100 to $200 every visit, nearly $10,000 over several months, selling his Medicare number to the clinic’s three owners, the Benitez brothers, who were later indicted on charges of bilking $119 million from Medicare.
The second story is about Miami, so this is not just a local New York problem.
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