Federal prosecutors announced charges Thursday against a California doctor who allegedly ran a $230 million fraud during the pandemic, billing the government for uninsured claims for patients who either had insurance or weren’t treated.
Dr. Anthony Hao Dinh used more than $100 million of his ill-gotten gains to do high-risk options trading, authorities said.
They also announced charges against a Utah resident accused of selling 120,000 counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination cards, a Puerto Rico dentist who allegedly double-billed for patients to take advantage of reimbursements for personal protective equipment, and a Florida doctor who is accused of billing the government for COVID test kits for Medicare patients who didn’t want them.
The Justice Department said the cases are part of a nationwide push to weed out pandemic fraud in the healthcare sector.
Cases ranged from massive overbilling to more run-of-the-mill instances of medical establishments inflating their business records to apply for larger pandemic small business loans.
Attorney General Merrick Garland called the announcement “unprecedented” and Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. called the cases “the largest-ever coordinated law enforcement action”ebcx against healthcare fraud involving the coronavirus.
The Justice Department said the cases included nearly $490 million in false billings.
That included a case against Lourdes Navarro, a California woman who was previously charged with a $214 million fraud, and who saw prosecutors bump that up to $241 million bilked from the government.
That and the case against Dr. Dinh account for most of the financial damage.
Investigators talked with 40 patients for whom the doctor’s clinics billed, accounting for $1.4 million in government reimbursements, and all of them said they didn’t get medical treatment. Some said they weren’t even tested for the coronavirus, even though the clinic said each was tested, diagnosed and needed treatment.
One witness was a commander in the National Guard who brought an entire 60-person unit for testing. The witness denied getting any treatment, even though Dr. Dinh’s clinic billed the Uninsured Program for a biopsy and control of a nosebleed.
That was odd because as members of the National Guard, the soldiers were likely covered by insurance.
Another witness, who had Medicare coverage, got a couple of COVID tests but nothing else.
Even though the patient had Medicare, Dr. Dinh’s clinic submitted 10 claims for reimbursement to the Uninsured Program, totaling $75,727.33 for seven COVID tests, office visits and surgical procedures.
Bogus medical billing is just one area of COVID fraud, albeit one that doesn’t get as much attention.
Hundreds of billions of dollars were likely bilked from the big relief programs such as unemployment benefits and small business loans.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.