The new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act lengthens prison sentences, boosts funding for enforcement by $300 million in the next 10 years and gives investigators new authority to step up oversight, according to the release.
Investigators with the Justice Department and HHS are focusing on high-fraud areas, such as Los Angeles, Houston, Detroit, Brooklyn, Baton Rouge, La., and Tampa, Fla.
For the fiscal year that ended last Sept. 30, federal investigators won or negotiated $1.63 billion in judgments and settlements and opened 1,014 new criminal healthcare fraud investigations involving 1,786 defendants.
The year before, the government won or negotiated $1 billion in judgments and settlements, and investigators opened 957 new criminal health are fraud investigations involving 1,641 potential defendants.
Read the HHS release on Medicare fraud.
Read the 2009 Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program Report (pdf).
