Tag: Health care fraud

NEW YORK – Alexandra Stchaslivteseva, 52, of New York has been arrested for allegedly offering and paying illegal health care kickbacks and money laundering, resulting in Medicare paying more than $17.3 million in false claims. She allegedly offered and paid kickbacks and bribes to several purported telemedicine companies and marketing companies in exchange for completed doctor orders of medically unnecessary orthotic braces and continuous glucose monitors for Medicare beneficiaries. Stchastlivtseva...

NASHVILLE – The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee has charged Tache “Gabe” Georgescu, 45, and Natalia Georgescu, 38, both of Laguna Niguel, Calif., owners and operators of now defunct Lowry Medical Supply, Inc., in Nashville with conspiracy to commit health care fraud and paying illegal kickbacks. According to the charging document, in November 2017, the Georgescus purchased Lowry Medical, and in 2018, they purchased three other DME companies located...

WASHINGTON – The Council for Quality Respiratory Care in a statement today encouraged CMS to reconsider eliminating the CMN for home oxygen therapy.  The CQRC, a coalition of the nation’s largest respiratory providers and manufacturers, says doing that would replace “objective testing ordered by a patient’s physician for the subjective decision-making of Medicare contractors.”  “We are highly supportive of allowing acute patients to receive oxygen...

WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice opened 1,148 new criminal health care fraud investigations in fiscal year 2020, according to an annual report published this week. Federal prosecutors filed criminal charges in 412 cases involving 679 defendants. A total of 440 defendants were convicted of health care fraud-related crimes. The DOJ also opened 1,079 new civil health care fraud investigations and had 1,498 civil health care fraud matters pending at the end of fiscal year 2020. Investigative...

DALLAS – A federal jury has convicted Dallas area owners and operators of two DME companies of one count of conspiracy to defraud the United states and to pay and receive health care kickbacks, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. According to evidence presented at trial, Leah Hagan and Michael Hagen, the owners and operators of Metro DME Supply and Ortho Pain Solutions, paid a fixed rate per DME item in exchange for prescriptions and paperwork completed by telemedicine doctors...

WASHINGTON - Last week's National Summit on Health Care Fraud was billed as "the first national gathering on healthcare fraud between law enforcement and the private and public sectors," but AAHomecare didn't get a seat at the table until the last minute. Even then, the association was shut out of much of the proceedings. Here's what Michael Reinemer, AAHomecare's vice president of communications and policy, had to say about the association's disappointment and what it expects to come out of the...