From doctors committing identity theft to drug companies illegally marketing their products, the U.S. government recovered a record-setting $4 billion from a variety of medical-related fraud committed in 2010.

 

In one case, a doctor stole the identities of patients, and tried to bill Medicare for 24 chiropractic treatments supposedly given to premature twin babies who were in a neonatal ICU at the time of the services.

 

Another crime cited by the U.S. Department of Justice involved a company billing for ambulance trips, despite not owning any ambulances.

 

However, the biggest catches involved pharmaceutical manufacturers trying to sell drugs for health problems without first gaining approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

 

Allergan agreed to pay $600 million to settle criminal and civil charges arising from the selling of Botox as a remedy for headaches. Novartis paid $422.5 million for illegally marketing some of its products, while AstraZeneca settled for $520 million in penalties for unauthorized marketing of an anti-psychotic drug and for paying kickbacks to doctors.

 

The Department of Health and Human Services, which worked with the Justice Department to uncover the fraud cases, announced new federal rules that will allow Medicare to stop all payments to a provider once a credible complaint about fraud has been received.

-David Wallechinsky

 

Health Care Fraud Crackdown Reveals Pharmaceutical Companies Among America’s Top Defrauders (by Rick Ungar, Forbes)

Feds Recovered $4 Billion in Govt Medical Fraud in 2010 - Behind the Numbers (by Brian Hartman, ABC News)

Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control ProgramAnnual Report for Fiscal Year 2010 (Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Justice) (pdf)

Top 10 Fraud Recoveries All Came from Health Care Companies (by David Wallechinsky, AllGov)