Officials have announced charges against multiple people accused of participating in fraud schemes amid the pandemic which resulted in approximately $150 million in losses.
On Wednesday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said several defendants were charged related to incidents asking patients to hand over information and samples for coronavirus tests, then using the data to give alleged false and fraudulent claims to Medicare.
As the Hill reported:
In one scheme, two defendants who are owners of a California-based clinical laboratory were charged with a health care fraud, kickback, and money laundering scheme that involved filing false claims for over $214 million for laboratory tests and filing $125 million of false claims during the pandemic for COVID-19 and respiratory pathogen tests.
Two other defendants allegedly obtained confidential information from patients seeking COVID-19 tests at local drive-thrus and used the information to submit fraudulent claims for lengthy office visits with the patients that never occurred.
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