{"id":506,"date":"2011-09-13T16:42:44","date_gmt":"2011-09-13T22:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/?p=506"},"modified":"2024-07-14T05:42:27","modified_gmt":"2024-07-14T10:42:27","slug":"dozens-arrested-in-medicare-mental-health-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2011\/09\/13\/dozens-arrested-in-medicare-mental-health-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Dozens arrested in Medicare mental health fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5 align=\"center\">Dozens arrested in Medicare mental health fraud<\/h5>\n<p>Sep 7th, 2011<br \/>\nBy <a href=\"mailto:jweaver@MiamiHerald.com\">Jay Weaver<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/2011\/09\/07\/2394354\/dozens-arrested-in-medicare-mental.html\">Miami Herald<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Federal agents busted 42 South Florida suspects on Medicare fraud charges as part of a Justice Department sweep targeting hotspots from Miami to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>Out-of-state patients, suffering from disabilities and addictions, were lured to South Florida with the promise of a roof over their head. But once they arrived, with their valuable Medicare cards in hand, they would be squeezed into rundown Assisted-Living Facilities and steered to purported mental-health programs &#8212; at a multimillion-dollar cost to taxpayers, authorities say. If they dropped out of the group therapy sessions, the ALF owners would toss the patients out into the street.<\/p>\n<p>Collectively, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re accused of submitting $160 million in false claims to Medicare for services that were either not needed or provided to patients.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest case was the new indictment of Biscayne Milieu and 23 defendants, including the family owners, a psychiatrist, Dr. Gary Kushner, patient recruiters and ALF operators. The clinic owners are accused of paying recruiters and landlords to lure out-of-state patients into the scheme.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Crime in Mental Health Care<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For decades psychiatrists and psychologists have claimed a monopoly over the field of mental health. Governments and private health insurance companies have provided them with billions of dollars every year to treat &#8220;mental illness,&#8221; only to face industry demands for even more funds to improve the supposed, ever-worsening state of mental health. No other industry can afford to fail consistently and expect to get more funding.<\/p>\n<p>A significant portion of these appropriations and insurance reimbursements has been lost due to financial fraud within the mental health industry, an international problem estimated to cost more than a hundred billion dollars every year. The United States loses approximately $100 billion to health care fraud each year, with up to $40 billion of this due to fraudulent practices in the mental health industry.<\/p>\n<p>For more information about psychiatric fraud, download and read the free CCHR booklet, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/fraud.shtml\">Massive Fraud &#8211; Psychiatry&#8217;s Corrupt Industry &#8211; Report and recommendations on the criminal mental health monopoly.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dozens arrested in Medicare mental health fraud Sep 7th, 2011 By Jay Weaver Miami Herald Federal agents busted 42 South Florida suspects on Medicare fraud charges as part of a Justice Department sweep targeting hotspots from Miami to Los Angeles. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2011\/09\/13\/dozens-arrested-in-medicare-mental-health-fraud\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-muddy-river-newsletter","category-press-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6NMpC-8a","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}