Medicare fraud indictments in Baton Rouge
On Friday, federal authorities indicted 29 people in Baton Rouge, Louisiana suspected of defrauding Medicare out of $32 million. Four of the individuals are physicians.
The Baton Rouge Advocate has the story.
The federal government set up the nation’s eighth Medicare Strike Force in Baton Rouge in February. The 29 indictments announced on Friday constitute the force’s first wave of prosecutions and is also the largest crack down on Medicare fraud in the Middle District of Louisiana. Agents targeted patient recruiters, doctors, medical professionals and employees of healthcare businesses.
Two of the individuals, Dr. Dahlia Kirkpatrick of LaPlace and Emmanuel Komandu of Prairieville, allegedly defrauded Medicare out of $775,000. Specifically, the government alleges that Kirkpatrick gave prescriptions to Alpha Medical Solutions Inc., which is owned by Komandu, that lacked medical necessity.
In addition to the 29 indictments in Baton Rouge, federal agents arrested 63 individuals in Brooklyn, Miami, Houston and Detroit. Government officials estimate that the total dollar value of the fraud is approximately $219 million.
One of our federal criminal attorneys was recently retained in another federal case in Baton Rouge, involving allegations of public corruption. It appears that the U.S. Attorney's office for the Middle District of Louisiana has been very busy lately. This district seems to prosecute more medicare fraud cases than most other districts, even districts with much larger populations.
