Texas Tea Party supporter Physician arrested, largest Medicare fraud in history

[Riot]

At least they are catching these guys!

Washington— Federal law enforcement officials announced what they called the largest healthcare fraud case in the nation’s history, indicting a Dallas area physician for allegedly bilking Medicare for nearly $375 million in billings for nonexistent home healthcare services.

Top Justice Department officials, working for several years to stem a rampant rise in healthcare fraud around the country, also revealed Tuesday that 78 home health agencies that were working with the physician, Dr. Jacques Roy, will be suspended from the Medicare program for up to 18 months.

FBI agents in Texas arrested Roy, of Rockwall, Texas, a physician for 28 years, and asked a federal judge in Dallas to keep him in custody until trial, citing his vast “bank accounts, a sailboat, vehicles and multiple pieces of property” as indications he may attempt to flee.

Facing life in prison and a $250,000 fine, as well as restitution of the vast sum of money he allegedly cost the federal government, Roy is to appear in court in Dallas later Tuesday.

Under the alleged fraud scheme, the doctor and his office manager in DeSoto, Texas, Teri Sivils, who was also charged, allegedly sent healthcare “recruiters” door-to-door asking residents to sign forms that contained the doctor’s electronic signature and stated that he had seen the residents professionally for medical services he never provided.

They also allegedly dispatched more “recruiters” to a homeless shelter in Dallas, paying $50 to every street person they coaxed from a nearby parking lot and signed him up on the bogus forms.

The long-running ruse allegedly began in 2006 and over five years collected more Medicare beneficiaries than any other medical practice in the United States.

Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., in testimony Tuesday before a House appropriations subcommittee, said the Department of Justice is making healthcare fraud a centerpiece of its enforcement efforts. He said that in the last fiscal year alone, they had recovered nearly $4.1 billion in funds “that were stolen or taken improperly from federal healthcare programs.”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/n...,6359381.story

http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/in...&employ=&cand=

Contributor Occupation Date Amount Recipient
ROY, JACQUES A DR
ROCKWALL,TX 75087 SELF EMPLOYED/PHYSICIAN 12/21/10 $300 Texas Medical Assn
ROY, JACQUES MR
ROCKWALL,TX 75087 JACQUES ROY/PHYSICIAN 1/10/10 $500 Tea Party Express/Our Country Deserves B
ROY, JACQUES MR
ROCKWALL,TX 75087 JACQUES ROY/PHYSICIAN 10/6/09 $250 Tea Party Express/Our Country Deserves B
ROY, JACQUES MR
ROCKWALL,TX 75087 JACQUES ROY/PHYSICIAN 10/16/09 $200 Tea Party Express/Our Country Deserves B
ROY, JACQUES MR
ROCKWALL,TX 75087 JACQUES ROY/PHYSICIAN 11/6/09 $200 Tea Party Express/Our Country Deserves B
ROY, JACQUES MR
ROCKWALL,TX 75087 JACQUES ROY/PHYSICIAN 8/31/09 $200 Tea Party Express/Our Country Deserves B