Thieves, Crooks, Fraudsters, The taxpayers nightmare.
Federal health officials have failed in their efforts to police the emergence of phantom pharmacies, fly-by-night storefront operations that bilk millions of dollars in false Medicare bills then vanish with the cash. See CNN Money for more.
No permits are needed. There is no store or pharmacy as we know them. There are no medicines on the shelves, no employees, no ‘real’ in-store customers. And yet, these fake pharmacies produce huge bills for medication, defrauding Medicare of millions of US dollars per year. Incredible, but true.
How is this accomplished? Thieves, crooks, fraudsters use a legitimate address to establish a fake pharmacy business; Then, using stolen ID and patient insurance ID numbers (mostly from seniors), scammers write fraudulent prescriptions for expensive drugs that were never actually prescribed; Next, they submit these fake prescriptions for reimbursement to insurers, Medicare or Medicaid. In a single claim, a fake pharmacy can make anywhere from $2,000 to $8,000. Some "fraudster pharmacies" only exist a few days. By the time the fake reimbursements have been collected, the phantom pharmacies have long since closed and their operators have disappeared without a trace.
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Complete article at Patch : http://bit.ly/r2zTQm
