Health care fraud

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The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" of Normal Children Fred A. Baughman, Jr., M.D. and Craig Hovey See book keywords and concepts

The educational establishment from top to bottom should be forever ashamed of their unwitting complicity in having allowed themselves to become drug pushers in every sense of he word, in what is the greatest health care fraud in American history. Rather than gear education to the needs and aptitudes of children, they stubbornly cling to unworkable modes of education and think nothing of issuing chemical straightjackets to children who do not comply.

Natural Health Solutions Mike Adams See book keywords and concepts

A quick review of "The Department of Health and Human Services and The Department of Justice health care fraud and Abuse Control Program Annual Report For FY 2003" shows that in just one year they were able to settle and split the monies recovered in the cases below among the Federal Government, 49 states, the District of Columbia, and the Public Health Service. Recent Pharmaceutical Settlements Bristol-Meyers Squibb has agreed to pay $150 million to settle charges of accounting violations levied by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" of Normal Children Fred A. Baughman, Jr., M.D. and Craig Hovey See book keywords and concepts

This is the biggest health care fraud of all time, and it is being exported by US psychiatry and Big Pharma to all the rest of the world. Both the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Food and Drug Administration have acknowledged to us in writing that there is "...no proof that ADHD is a disease, a medical syndrome or anything biologic or organic." Even the ADHD "experts" (as if somebody can be an expert on something that does not exist) will not come out and say whether ADHD is a disease or not, nor will the Center for Disease Control.

The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman Peter Rost See book keywords and concepts

According to the Department of Justice, Pfizer's $240 million criminal fine for Neurontin was "the second largest criminal fine ever imposed in a health care fraud prosecution." The same team at the Justice Department in Boston who declined intervention in the Neurontin case, which generated a total of $430 million in criminal and civil fines, also declined intervention in the Genotropin case. So why did I start all of this? Why did I ever file the qui tarn lawsuit against Pfizer that resulted in this ruckus?

The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" of Normal Children Fred A. Baughman, Jr., M.D. and Craig Hovey See book keywords and concepts

One of the most frightening examples of pharmaceutical company drug pushing came in the May 13, 2004 announcement from the Justice Department that Pfizer had pled guilty to charges that it had wrongly promoted Neurontin, an epilepsy drug, for unapproved uses and agreed to pay $430 million, which included a $240 million criminal fine, the second largest ever in the prosecution of health care fraud. The Justice Department has made settlements for over $2 billion since the year 2000 as the result of investigations into how big pharmaceutical companies market their drugs illegally.

The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman Peter Rost See book keywords and concepts

A few days later I met with an FBI agent and the Deputy health care fraud Chief in Boston. And that is when I realized that it will take a long time until this story ends. This book is just the beginning of an amazing journey, so different from anything I could've imagined. It is not a voyage I knew I would chose a few years back, or that I could ever have imagined that I would take. So I will just try to enjoy, and make the most of every day. Because it isn't the final destination that matters, it is the pleasure you take from traveling to it. Afterword PFIZER FIRED ME on December 1, 2005.

The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It Marcia Angell, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

Between 2000 and 2003, according to Michael Loucks, chief of the health care fraud Unit in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts, eight companies paid out a total of $2.2 billion in fines and settlements. Four of those companies—TAP Pharmaceuticals (discussed in Chapter 7), Abbott, AstraZeneca, and Bayer—pleaded guilty to criminal charges. TAP, the champion so far, paid a total of $885 million, of which $290 million were criminal fines. Loucks pointed out in a speech that the company received $2.

Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele See book keywords and concepts

One possibility would be to decriminalize health care fraud and make it a civil offense. There would be no perp walk, but the economic penalties could be draconian: Steal from health care and you lose all your personal assets—home, car, savings, retirement accounts, everything—no exceptions. Individuals could supplement their basic government-supported coverage through private insurance. Wealthier citizens could continue to obtain whatever care they wanted and pay for it.

As it turned out, the company's psychiatric unit set the standard for health care fraud. Its doctors and administrators over-billed patients, insurers, and Medicare. They charged for services and treatment never provided. They signed false insurance claims and encouraged others to do so. They paid up to $40 million in kickbacks to doctors to refer Medicare, Medicaid, and privately insured patients to their psychiatric hospitals. They falsified the charts of patients to confine them in the hospitals longer than needed—sometimes against their will—in order to keep the money flowing from insurers.

The criminal fine alone amounted to $240 million, the second largest ever imposed in a health care fraud prosecution. POLITICS AND PROFITS To protect its interests and expand its influence, the health care industrial complex has done what all successful special interests do: It's become a big donor and a high-powered lobby in Washington.

That included a $290-million criminal fine, the largest ever in a health care fraud prosecution; $559.5 million to the U.S. government in civil damages for filing false and fraudulent claims with the Medicare and Medicaid programs; and $25.5 million to state governments for their losses. Through the 1990s, TAP's two principal drugs were Lupron for prostate cancer and Prevacid for acid reflux disease. Lupron suppressed or eliminated production of testosterone, which promotes the growth of prostate cancer. Patients receive the injectable treatments for the rest of their lives.

The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It Marcia Angell, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

Eventually, after a long delay, during which Gerstein and another whistle-blower from within the company sued under the federal False Claims Act, TAP Pharmaceuticals agreed to plead guilty to health care fraud and settled the criminal and civil charges for a record $875 million. In addition, eleven TAP employees and a Massachusetts doctor were indicted for their part in the fraud.

20 Years of Censored News Carl Jensen See book keywords and concepts

The Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly (5/20/96) points out the annual cost of money lost to health care fraud, waste, and abuse would more than cover the cost of providing health care for all of the approximately 37 million presently uninsured Americans. 9. U.S. Chemical Industry Fights for Toxic Ozone-Killing Pesticide 1995 SYNOPSIS: Methyl bromide (MB) is a pesticide that is at least 50 times more destructive to the ozone layer, atom for atom, than chlorofluorocar-bons (CFCs), yet America's chemical industry is fighting to prevent it from being banned.

The Medical Racket Martin L. Cross See book keywords and concepts

Columbia's troubles will not be over even if there is a settlement with the government," says Alison Duncan, a Washington attorney whose firm specializes in health care fraud. Working for some of the largest private insurers, her firm is delving into possible bilking at Columbia, which gets sixty percent of its revenue from private insurers. The Insurers' Conflicts of Interest This is a bit of a precedent since private health insurance companies have previously put their heads in the sand when it came to hospitals.

In all, the estimated $100 billion a year in health care fraud is probably understated, especially since policing is lax. There are less than five hundred agents in the FBI and 250 in the government's Inspector General's Office assigned to the problem—dealing with 720,000 doctors, 190,000 dentists (many of whom collect through Medicaid), some 6,200 hospitals, and over 1,000 HMOs. Widespread Fraud As FBI Director Louis Freeh testified to Congress about medical thievery: "The crime problem is so big and so diverse that we are making only a small dent in addressing the fraud.

After an investigation of Caremark by the FBI, the HHS Inspector General, and the Minnesota health care fraud Task Force, several physicians and executives were charged with aai elaborate plot. The charge was based on a law that bars renumeration for referrals. According to the government, the company paid the doctor, a pediatric endocrinologist, $1.1 million in kickbacks to induce him to prescribe a human growth hormone, Protropin, which was distributed to doctors exclusively by Caremark. The doctor was one of the nation's largest prescribers of the drug.

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