![]() ![]() The onslaught of unwanted tests is expected to wane. The department, along with the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, is investigating other reports of coronavirus tests being sent to recipients who never ordered them, both said in separate statements. The scheme resulted in $8.4 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare, the Justice Department said. The Justice Department in April charged a Florida physician and marketer who it said illegally bought Medicare ID numbers and sent tests to seniors who did not request them. ![]() It is the latest in a string of scams targeting seniors during the coronavirus pandemic, advocates for seniors said. The Biden administration in early 2022 expanded access to free tests but often without the safeguards that would make it harder to get them to Americans quickly. The fraud is a consequence of President Joe Biden‘s response to a shortage of Covid-19 tests around the 2021 holiday season, when shoppers struggled to find them in stores. “These are coming from all over the place.” “With scams, there tends to be some local focus, a focus in a certain city or state,” said John Risler, volunteer director of Northeast Florida’s Senior Medicare Patrol task force. Seniors and their families in at least 10 states have been targeted, Bloomberg Government found. The US Justice Department is investigating who bilked millions from Medicare by stealing the ID numbers of seniors in multiple states and ordering Covid-19 tests they didn’t want.įraudsters even billed for rapid tests ordered under the names of dead people, according to a health-care fraud prosecutor at the Justice Department who spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe is ongoing.įederal investigators are just beginning to uncover the breadth of the fraud, which involved hundreds of thousands of tests. ![]()
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