The Secretary of the HHS Mike Leavitt announced here today of a two-year effort that has been designed for the further protection of Medicare beneficiaries from the deceitful suppliers of the so-called medical equipments that happen to be sturdy, in company with prosthetics and orthotics supplies (DMEPOS). It has also been announced by him, that the entire initiative is centrally focused on the steady impediment of deceptive companies from their course of operation, specially in the regions of South Florida and Southern California.

It has been understood from the additional info, as available from the responsible and viable sources operating in the different strata of the society that the specified regions of Miami and Los Angeles have already been identified as high-risk areas, specifically in reference to the notion of fraudulent billing by the very suppliers of the DMEPOS. Meanwhile, the HHS while working with the Department of Justice or the DOJ, has formed a Medicare Fraud Strike Force for the sake of fighting against the repeated charges of fraud chiefly through the use of real-time analysis of Medicare billing data. It is to be documented that in just three months, a total number of 56 individuals have been charged only in the Southern District of Florida with no more than the episode of fraudulent billing of Medicare amounting to $258 million. The strike force is made up of federal, state and local investigators. In addition, in the month of the last December the federal officials had contracted with the National Supplier Clearinghouse for the arrangement of visits to 1,472 South Florida DMEPOS suppliers. Just through a series of on site investigations, 634 supplier billing numbers were invalidated while saving Medicare with a projected amount of $317 million. Examples of products that are being billed at higher than normal rates are motorized wheelchairs; nebulizers and aerosol medications; artificial limbs; and wound therapy treatments.

In the same style, a similar course of action also happened in the Los Angeles area in the very last year. There also happened a series of detailed investigations among 2,000 DMEPOS suppliers that resulted in 770 with their billing privileges revoked for the rest of the time. The prime reason of selecting Los Angeles is since like South Florida, this very region has also been a breeding ground of deceitful action.

While through the announcement Secretary Leavitt said, "Eliminating fraudulent suppliers in Medicare protects America's seniors and enhances their quality of care. This initiative is aimed at doing just that - stopping durable medical equipment fraud before it happens."