Tag: kickbacks

Six Texas doctors received more than $1 million in kickback scheme

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Six Texas doctors received more than $1 million in kickbacks for their referrals to two laboratories for diagnostic testing, the Department of Justice alleged in a civil complaint.

True Health Diagnostics of Frisco and Boston Heart Diagnostics of Framingham, Mass. allegedly conspired with small Texas hospitals to pay physicians to make referrals to the two labs for tests, according to the complaint. The complaint named one hospital, Rockdale Hospital, which was located in Rockdale, a city in central Texas with a population of about 5,000 people.

The scheme involved recruiters hired by the hospitals to enlist doctors to make referrals to the hospitals…Rockdale Hospital, now closed, and other hospitals allegedly paid a portion of their laboratory profits to recruiters, who in turn kicked back those funds to the referring physicians…

Nice work if you can get it…says the old song. Don’t think the lyrics include jail time.

Feds supply Yankee Stadium rain ponchos for hospital workers’ PPE

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Desperate times call for desperate measures. But this is just plain wrong.

A doctor at a hospital in New York City tweeted a photo Tuesday of the coronavirus PPE (personal protective equipment) she was issued.

I’m a physician at a hospital in NYC and THIS IS THE “PPE” I WAS JUST HANDED for my shift. Our federal government has completely failed its health care workers. #GetUsPPE

That’s how bad the coronavirus pandemic has become. Medical supplies are in such short supply and high demand that the doctors and nurses working on the front lines in hospitals are being asked to protect themselves from a deadly virus with something that doesn’t even keep people dry at Yankee Stadium.

And Trump probably took a commission for the shipment from the Yankees’ PR budget.

FBI investigation into FIFA bribes now includes FOX

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What a brother act! — Foto-net

❝A sports marketing company that was described in a sweeping indictment this month as retaining contracts because of the “support” of corrupt soccer officials has longstanding ties to the U.S. entertainment company 21st Century Fox, according to securities filings and other government documents.

The description of T&T Sports Marketing Ltd in the indictment signals that U.S. prosecutors have intensified their focus on media companies and what they might have known about any bribes…

❝When prosecutors announced their corruption investigation of world soccer’s governing body FIFA in May, they spoke in court papers about “an array of broadcasters and advertisers” but otherwise did not specifically address their role.

❝21st Century Fox listed T&T as a subsidiary last year in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Its investment in the company stretches back to 2002, government documents from the United States and Argentina showed…

T&T, which is registered in the Cayman Islands, does not have a listed telephone number and it was unclear if it has employees of its own…

❝The Dec. 3 indictment said three executives “affiliated” with T&T bribed at least 15 high-level soccer officials to support the company’s exclusive worldwide broadcasting rights for events such as the Copa Libertadores, a major South American club tournament. The three executives were at the time with Argentine sports marketing firm Torneos y Competencias, the indictment said…

The indictment does not explain how T&T benefited from retaining the broadcasting contracts. T&T is not a broadcaster itself, but by obtaining broadcasting rights, it could resell them to major broadcasters.

21st Century Fox, which is led by media baron Rupert Murdoch, ended up with the rights to broadcast the Copa Libertadores and other tournaments…

❝Mere ownership in a subsidiary or affiliate involved in bribery would not be enough, however, for prosecutors to charge a major media company. There would need to be evidence the company knew or was willfully blind.

According to the indictment, T&T was owned in part by Argentina’s Torneos and in part by “a group of investors that included an affiliate of a major broadcasting company headquartered in the United States whose identity is known to the grand jury.” The description does not go beyond that.

Today, only two companies own shares in T&T. A Fox affiliate owns 75 percent and Torneos owns 25 percent, according to Torneos.

If it walks like a Rupert, quacks like a Rupert, it’s probably a Rupert.

How Corrupt Is Your State?

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New York Senate majority leader, [Rep] Dean Skelos and son Adam both charged in bribery plot

How does each state rank for transparency and accountability? The State Integrity Investigation used extensive research to grade the states based on the laws and systems they have in place to deter corruption. Use the interactives in the article to see how states scored overall and explore how they performed in each of the 13 categories.

Yup. I live in a D-minus state.

Surgery by an unlicensed assistant and $150 million insurance fraud – Woo-Hoo!

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A physician assistant who wasn’t licensed or trained to perform surgery operated on hundreds of patients while the orthopedic surgeon who billed for the procedures schemed with colleagues to hide a massive insurance fraud conspiracy…

…Prosecutors opposed reducing bail for 13 people who have pleaded not guilty in the alleged $150m fraud scheme and outlined the complexity of an operation they say spanned a decade and led to unnecessary and scarring surgeries for patients.

The indictments “paint a clear picture of a sophisticated and savvy group of criminal conspirators who placed profits above the health and welfare of the thousands of patients they purported to treat,” deputy district attorney Catherine Chon said in court papers…“The callous disregard and extreme indifference that was shown to unsuspecting victims is reflected in the overt acts alleged.”

Dr Munir Uwaydah and his associates allegedly prescribed unnecessary expensive medications, billed two-minute doctor’s appointments as hour-long examinations, and doctored MRI results and medical records to justify unnecessary operations.

Fifteen people have been indicted in the scheme alleged to have paid marketers and workers’ compensation lawyers up to $10,000 a month in kickbacks to funnel patients to Uwaydah’s clinic. They got bonuses if the patients were candidates for surgery and additional cash if they received operations…

In some instances, even the patients were paid if they were reluctant to go through with the expensive surgeries, Chon said…

RTFA for all the misery inflicted on patients.

And we have a delightful commingling of crooked doctors and lawyers in this insurance fraud. Politicians keep telling us the biggest problem in the cost of medical care in America is that too many poor people keep trying to stay alive. Poisonally, I think those politicians fall into the same class of creep as doctors and lawyers who milk the system for illegitimate insurance claims.

243 medical “professionals” busted in $712 million Medicare fraud

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Digitizing medical records tracks provider accounts as well as individual histories

The U.S. Justice Department charged 243 people, including 46 doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, with defrauding the Medicare system of $712 million through false billing.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the charges…calling the case the largest sweep of individuals in the history of task forces that target such fraud.

“The defendants charged include doctors, patient recruiters, home health-care providers, pharmacy owners, and others,” Lynch said. “They billed for equipment that wasn’t provided, for care that wasn’t needed, and for services that weren’t rendered.”

The defendants were accused of money laundering, conspiring to commit health-care fraud and violating anti-kickback laws. The scams involved treatments ranging from home health care to psychotherapy. The Justice Department alleged that participants in the scams submitted claims to Medicare and Medicaid for treatments that were medically unnecessary and often never provided…

Government efforts to combat health-care fraud led to the recovery of $3.3 billion in taxpayer dollars in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to a March report. During that period, U.S. prosecutors opened 924 new criminal health-care fraud investigations, the two departments said in the joint report.

The medical-industrial complex still hasn’t learned how to steal from taxpayers with the skill and cunning of their counterparts in the military-industrial complex.

Tub-thumping politicians in Congress blather day-in and day-out that they must oppose real single-payer healthcare because the people can’t be trusted to treat the system honestly. Yet, time and again, the real crooks turn out to be the practitioners, profiteering frauds within the medical community.