Medicare Can’t Identify Top Prescribers of Addictive Drugs
Watchdog Says Doctors’ ID Numbers Aren’t Verified
By Joe Eaton | February 08, 2011 The
Center for Public Integrity
In early 2010, Medicare paid $135,000 to a discount pharmacy in Hialeah, Fla. for drug prescriptions written by four doctors.
There were only a few problems. First, two of the doctors were dead. A third doctor was alive, living in Portland, Ore., but he never wrote the prescriptions. The fourth doctor was a few months into a three-year prison sentence, according to federal court records, for conspiracy to commit Medicare fraud.
In October, Renier Vicente Rodriguez Fleitas, 60, owner of Pirifer Phamacy and Discount and a former lieutenant colonel in the Cuban military, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit health care fraud. He is currently serving a 37-month sentence.
According to his attorney, Rodriguez was simply a homeless person serving as a straw man for more organized criminals who used his name to set up the pharmacy and divert money from Medicare.
“He was given rent and food to sign some documents to be president of the company,” lawyer Sabrina Vora-Puglisi said, adding that the organizers also paid for a plane ticket to Cuba.
(Original here.)
By Joe Eaton | February 08, 2011 The
Center for Public Integrity
In early 2010, Medicare paid $135,000 to a discount pharmacy in Hialeah, Fla. for drug prescriptions written by four doctors.
There were only a few problems. First, two of the doctors were dead. A third doctor was alive, living in Portland, Ore., but he never wrote the prescriptions. The fourth doctor was a few months into a three-year prison sentence, according to federal court records, for conspiracy to commit Medicare fraud.
In October, Renier Vicente Rodriguez Fleitas, 60, owner of Pirifer Phamacy and Discount and a former lieutenant colonel in the Cuban military, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit health care fraud. He is currently serving a 37-month sentence.
According to his attorney, Rodriguez was simply a homeless person serving as a straw man for more organized criminals who used his name to set up the pharmacy and divert money from Medicare.
“He was given rent and food to sign some documents to be president of the company,” lawyer Sabrina Vora-Puglisi said, adding that the organizers also paid for a plane ticket to Cuba.
(Original here.)
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1 Comments:
Well, this ain't good ... as I was under the impression that HEAT (Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team) would have already closed this practice down. HEAT reported in January that they recouped a record high $4 billion last year in Medicare and Medicaid fraud.
As of 2010, federal prosecutors have opened 1,116 criminal health care fraud investigations and filed criminal charges in 488 cases involving 931 defendants. A total of 726 defendants were convicted for health care fraud-related crimes in that time.
I guess there is more work to do.
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