73 charged in healthcare fraud ring that stole physician, patient identities
HIPAA Weekly Advisor, October 25, 2010
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Seventy-three defendants—including alleged members of an Armenian-American crime syndicate called Mirzoyan-Terdjanian—face charges for crimes involving more than $163 million in alleged fraudulent billing of Medicare and insurance companies across the nation, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) says.
The announcement came October 13 after indictments were unsealed in California, Georgia, New Mexico, New York and Ohio. Law enforcement officials in the national, multi-agency investigation reported 52 arrests in what the DOJ stated is the largest prosecution of a Medicare fraud scheme committed by one criminal enterprise.
The defendants are charged with defrauding Medicare and insurance companies by submitting fraudulent bills for medically unnecessary treatments or treatments that were never performed, DOJ alleges.
According to the indictments, the defendants stole the identities of doctors and thousands of Medicare beneficiaries and operated at least 118 different phony clinics in 25 states that submitted fradulent Medicare reimbursement claims.
“The international organized crime enterprise known as the Mirzoyan-Terdjanian, fleeced the healthcare system through a wide-range of money making criminal fraud schemes,” Kevin Perkins, FBI assistant director of the Criminal Investigative Division, said in a DOJ press release.
Read more on HIPAA Update.
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