What is Medicare Fraud?

Medicare fraud occurs when a hospital, nursing home, doctor's office, hospice care facility, ambulance service, pharmacy, rehabilitation center, or any other type of healthcare provider overbills Medicare.

 

Who can report Medicare fraud?

Medicare fraud whistleblowers are almost always healthcare professionals. They are commonly employed as hospital administrators, nurses, hospice or nursing home workers, ambulance drivers, pharmacists, or as any other type of healthcare professionals.

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Healthcare professionals may be entitled to a significant financial reward for becoming Medicare whistleblowers. Learn about receiving a financial reward for your information here.

 

Los Angeles Man's Fraud Scheme Bilks Medicare of $18.9 Million, But Costs Perpetrator 77 Months
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Nearly a year after pleading guilty to creating a massive Medicare fraud scheme that involved the submission of fraudulent claims of more than $18.9 million to Medicare, a Los Angeles man has been sentenced to 77 months, or six years and five months, in prison for his offenses. By utilizing stolen identities of licensed doctors, the FBI determined that Eduard Aslanyan, 38, was submitting false prescription orders and facilitated the submission of fraudulent and unnecessary diagnostic tests through specialty clinics. This is not the first time Aslanyan has engaged in medical fraud, and he is presently incarcerated, serving a three-year term on a state assault charge.
According to the terms of the sentence handed down by Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, Aslanyan will not only serve the 77-month sentence but will also submit to three years of supervised release following the term and pay restitution of $10.8 million. 

Aslanyan entered a guilty plea in April 2011 and told the court that he set up a number of medical clinics a between March 2007 and September 2008 in order to bilk money from Medicare. Along with Carolyn Vasquez, Aslanyan admitted that he hand-picked physicians to head the fraudulent clinics, and also hired physician assistants to cooperate in the scheme. Aslanyan and Vasquez, who have collaborated in attempts to defraud Medicare in the past, ensured that the physicians hired didn't perform any medical services at the clinic and in fact were not often present on the premises. 

The complex scheme did not end there; Aslanyan and Vasquez also sought out recruiters who would recruirt Medicare beneficiaries willing to trade their billing information for high-end, specialty medical equipment such as powered wheelchairs that would normally be prohibitively expensive. Aslanyan and Vasquez compensated the patient recruiters with money earned from the scheme.

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