MIAMI, Nov 16, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) -- U.S. authorities are targeting home
healthcare fraud in diabetes treatments, officials said.
Taxpayers are paying for thousands of homebound people to receive unnecessary
diabetic treatments, The Miami Herald reported Sunday. Many patients for which
the government is being billed either don't have the disease or don't need a
visiting nurse to inject insulin, the newspaper said.
Medicare's average annual expense for a homecare patient is $19,230 in
Miami-Dade County, or 164 percent more than in Los Angeles and 91 percent more
than in Dallas.
"I would have to attribute a lot of this activity to fraud to extract money from
the system," said Jeff Gregg, a senior regulatory official at the Florida Agency
for Health Care Administration, which licenses Medicare and Medicaid providers.
"As far as I can see, there is no other plausible explanation."
Randall Culp, an FBI special agent who works with the Medicare Fraud Strike
Force in Miami, said there are "black and white fraud cases out there," such as
when home healthcare agencies file false claims for services that were not
provided.
"'We need to focus on the fraudsters so the legitimate patients can continue to
receive these services," Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta said.
URL: www.upi.com
Copyright 2008 by United Press International