FAIRMONT, W.Va. — An announcement was made Thursday morning regarding the formation of a task force used to identify and respond to healthcare fraud in Northern West Virginia. Representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), West Virginia Medicaid Fraud Control and U.S. Attorney William Ihlenfeld were present at the event.
“Healthcare fraud continues to be a significant problem in West Virginia and throughout the country,” said U.S. Attorney William J. Ihlenfeld. “By using this data driven approach, we have identified new targets of investigations and we’ve also observed individuals who were already under investigation and we found more information to help bolster those cases.”
Some of the things able to be uncovered through the database include a provider who bills for more than 24 hours of service in a single day, over-billing in the treatment of individual patients or double billing of patients.
“Beyond being able to do these sophisticated analysis of healthcare billing the strategy is expedient and in many cases it cuts in half the amount of time it takes us to get from investigation to prosecution so we’re able to be much more efficient with our investigations with the tools that we now have available to us,” said Ihlenfeld. “It can impact anyone. I think older West Virginians tend to be victimized more than others simply because as you get older you need more healthcare. That’s just human nature but it can impact anyone and we ask for West Virginians to pay attention and if they’re aware of some kind of fraud being committed they should contact the U.S. attorney’s office.”
Agencies involved in the effort include the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI), the West Virginia Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the Ohio Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the West Virginia Office of the Insurance Commission, and the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.
“This is just a natural growth of what we do as an agency, as far as financial frauds and investigative work at our agency. Agents are very well specialized in and going through records and details of financial trails,” said FBI Special Agent Thomas Jankowski.
Task force members urge people who think they’ve been victims of healthcare fraud to contact the U.S. Attorney General’s office at 304-234-0100.
“Fraud is a billion dollar problem in the United States and we see cases on a regular basis for the U.S. Attorney’s office right here in Northern West Virginia where fraud is being committed and people are being victimized,” said Ihlenfeld.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Justice have launched www.stopmedicarefraud.gov for more information.