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Telemedicine Schemes Bring Federal Charges

The Department of Justice charged 345 people, including more than 100 doctors, nurses, and other licensed medical professionals, in what the agency called its largest healthcare fraud case ever.

Defendants were charged with submitting more than $6 billion in false and fraudulent claims to federal health care programs and private insurers, the justice department said.

The largest amount — $4.5 billion in allegedly false and fraudulent claims submitted by more than 86 criminal defendants in 19 judicial districts — involved telemedicine schemes.

In some cases, business executives paid doctors and nurse practitioners to order unnecessary durable medical equipment, genetic and diagnostic testing, or medications, either without any patient interaction or with only a brief phone conversation with patients they had never met, prosecutors said. Fraudulent claims were submitted to Medicare