Many of the players in
health care fraud schemes are people you'd never expect to be
criminals: doctors and
pharmacists, nurses and physical therapists.
Health care frauds have risen astronomically, now costing
government and private health insurers upwards of $95 billion a
year. Government health
programs, like Medicaid and Medicare, are the targets for about 44
percent of this fraud. Private
insurers bear the rest.
Fraud has now
infected virtually every facet of the health care industry.
From 1989 to 1992, 17 FBI field offices investigated pharmacy
fraud in Operation Gold Pill. They
uncovered fake prescriptions, false Medicaid billings, unnecessary
medical testing and the illicit sale of prescription drugs to street
dealers and corrupt pharmacists.
Operation Gold Pill led to the arrest and conviction of over
200 pharmacists and others.
People who
file phony auto insurance claims and stage car accidents defraud our
insurance companies of nearly $20 billion a year.
Translated, that means that you and I each pay $200 a year more
for auto insurance to pay for these fraudulent claims.
In May of
`95, the FBI and a host of other agencies arrested over 700 people in
40 cities as part of Operation Sudden Impact.
This 18-month undercover operation, which focused on false
billings, is one of many cases combating this explosive problem.
