The U.S. Justice Department has charged nearly 200 health care professionals in connection with a variety of schemes and scams that defrauded the government of $2.75 billion, the agency announced Thursday.
“The Justice Department will bring to justice criminals who defraud Americans, steal from taxpayer-funded programs, and put people in danger for the sake of profits," Attorney General Merrick Garland said.
The accused were rounded up in a two-week, nationwide health care fraud sweep that ensnared 193 defendants, including 76 doctors, nurse practitioners and other licensed medical professionals.
The cross-country sweep also resulted in the seizure of more than $231 million in cash, luxury vehicles, gold and other expensive assets.
One of the suspects was a Florida nurse practitioner who prescribed more than 1.5 million pills to people across the country, the Justice Department said, through her company’s auto-refill policy.
“This allegedly resulted in the nurse practitioner prescribing Adderall and other stimulants to individuals suffering from drug addiction and continuing to issue Adderall prescriptions for months after the overdose deaths of patients,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
Adderall is often used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.
In another case, three owners and executives of a wholesale distributor of pharmaceutical drugs were charged in connection with a purported $90 million wire fraud conspiracy that allegedly introduced “adulterated and misbranded HIV drugs into the market,” according to the Justice Department.
Pharmacies around the country unknowingly dispensed these medications to unsuspecting HIV patients. One patient, the Justice Department reported, took what he thought was HIV medication and was rendered unconscious for 24 hours because he had instead taken an anti-psychotic drug.
Meanwhile, 14 defendants in another case were charged with crimes related to the illegal prescription and distribution of opioids that resulted in millions of dollars in false billings.
In one case, 126 defendants allegedly defrauded Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance companies of more than $450 million in bogus claims, and 10 other defendants were charged in connection with a $65 million COVID-19 testing scam in southern Florida, according to a Justice Department statement.
The Justice Department’s criminal fraud unit was the lead investigator of the medical schemes. Other agencies involved in the probe included the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Some information for this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
