HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt has announced an initiative designed to protect Medicare beneficiaries from fraudulent providers of infusion therapy. This two-year project will focus on preventing deceptive providers from operating in South Florida. Providers there will be required to reapply to be a qualified Medicare infusion therapy provider.

"HHS continues to work with the Department of Justice to protect the public and Medicare by stopping fraud before it happens," Secretary Leavitt said. "This demonstration project works to bar unlawful infusion therapy providers from entering the Medicare billing system." The new infusion therapy demonstration follows similar demonstration projects previously announced by HHS.

The demonstrations target fraudulent billing by suppliers of durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supplies (DMEPOS) in South Florida and Southern California, and home health agencies in the greater Los Angeles and Houston areas. These geographic areas have shown a high frequency of DMEPOS or home health care fraud. South Florida is also one of the high-risk areas for fraudulent billing by providers of infusion therapy.
The Department of Justice (DoJ) is supporting HHS's new controls through a surge in prosecutions for health care fraud in South Florida. In May, the DoJ and HHS announced the work of a multi-agency team of federal, state and local investigators designed specifically to combat Medicare fraud through the use of real-time analysis of Medicare billing. Since implementing the "phase one" Strike Force in Miami last March, DoJ prosecutors working with Assistant U.S. Attorneys from the Southern District of Florida have filed 47 indictments charging 65 individuals and/or entities with health care fraud in schemes that collectively billed Medicare more than $345 million. The Strike Force has convicted 26 defendants to date; 23 by plea agreement and three have been convicted in jury trials.

"Through real-time access to Medicare billing data, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force has allowed us to move quickly to make arrests and bring prosecutions as rapidly as possible. The Department of Justice remains fully committed to vigorously protecting the financial integrity of the Medicare program," stated Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The Strike Force supplements the ongoing health care fraud enforcement efforts of the United States Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Florida, which has been among the leading offices in combating health care fraud nationwide, presently accounting for over 20 percent of all health care fraud defendants charged nationally. Since announcing a federal-state health care fraud initiative over 18 months ago, the United States Attorney's Office has filed at least 157 criminal cases charging at least 266 defendants with federal violations in various health care fraud schemes and significant civil cases and settlements. Collectively, defendants and subjects billed Medicare over $300 million and received more than $150 million in reimbursements in cases that preceded the announcement today. The vast majority of these cases involved fraudulent DME or Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infusion fraud schemes.

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