Medicare Fraud Strike Force

• In June 2015, more than 240 individuals—including doctors, nurses, and other licensed professionals—were arrested for their alleged participation in Medicare fraud schemes involving approximately $712 million in false billings. The alleged crimes included conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, money laundering, kickbacks, and aggravated identity theft.
• In August 2015, the task force investigated and arrested Rouzbeh Javaherian, owner of a Beverly Grove, California pharmacy called Westaid Pharmacy. He was sentenced to a year-and-a-half in prison and a $644,060 fine. Javaherian had pleaded guilty to paying cash kickbacks to Medicare patients and submitting false claims to Medicare Part D.
• In August 2015, a fake hospice nurse who treated more than 200 patients was sentenced to four years in prison.
• In September 2015, a psychiatrist in Houston was convicted in a fraud scheme amounting to $158 million in a federal criminal trial in Houston, Texas.
• In September 2016, two psychologists were convicted of health-care fraud, having participated in a $25-million scheme that administered repeated and medically unnecessary tests to nursing-home residents in Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and Alabama.
• In July 2017, Federal officials announced charges against more than 400 individuals—including doctors, nurses, and licensed medical professionals—for their roles in fraud schemes involving about $1.3 billion in false Medicare billings.
• In April 2019, Federal officials broke up a scam involving orthopedic braces and other durable medical equipment marketed through telemarketing, which doctors would then prescribe to patients regardless of whether they actually needed them. The scam was estimated to have cost Medicare over $1.2 billion. Twenty-four individuals were arrested in six states in connection with the scam.