NY hospitals implicated in Medicaid fraud

NY hospitals implicated in Medicaid fraud

By Anne Zieger

Created Jan 6 2009 - 10:32am

We've been hearing plenty about Medicare and Medicaid fraud in Southern California and South Florida lately; in fact, CMS even cut loose a number of medical device companies in those areas and imposed stricter rules on the rest. Now, there are at least seven hospitals in New York accused of Medicaid fraud.
The fraud, which amounts to $50 million, involves hospitals allegedly paying kickbacks to get more patients into treatment programs. One of the hospitals is accused of paying people to search homeless shelters for patients to stay three days in detox. Worse still, the seven hospitals involved were part of a government treatment program, but they didn't have a state license as required.
The hospitals are having lawsuits brought against them by state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell.