108 charged with Medicare fraud; bogus claims hit $455M

Doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers from around the nation—107 in all—were charged Wednesday in what federal officials in Washington called a "nationwide takedown" against medical professionals they said fraudulently billed Medicare out of nearly half a billion dollars in bogus claims. The sweep of arrests in seven major cities, where some $455 million was allegedly fraudulently billed, marked the highest amount of false claims in a single raid in the history of the federal strike force. The strike force was convened to combat rising fraud in the medical industry; the Obama administration said the scope of the investigation means that it is continuing to get tough on those preying on the Medicare assistance system during the recession.