by Ben Vernia | January 25th, 2011
On January 24, in advance of President Obama’s State of the Union speech on January 25, the Departments of Justice and HHS released a report claiming over $4 billion of recoveries for health care fraud in the fiscal year just ended (2010). Other highlights of the departments’ Health Care Fraud Enforcement Team (HEAT) strike force efforts:
- 140 indictments involving charges filed against 284 defendants who collectively billed the Medicare program more than $590 million;
- 217 guilty pleas negotiated and 19 jury trials litigated, winning guilty verdicts against 23 defendants; and
- 146 defendants were sentenced to prison during the fiscal year, averaging more than 40 months of incarceration.
HHS also announced new anti-fraud regulations arising from authority given to the agency in 2010’s health care reform law.