Health care fraud has become a hot topic and has recently become a major focus of law enforcement and prosecutors. Most health care fraud cases are prosecuted in federal court. While 18 U.S.C. S 1347 provides for a specific health care fraud crime, prosecutors often include other federal charges in such prosecutions, such as mail fraud, wire fraud, false claims, and money laundering. Some of the more common types of health care fraud include fraudulent billing, such as billing for services not performed, upcoding, and unbundling; misrepresenting diagnoses and procedures; and accepting kickbacks for patient referrals. These prosecutions are brought against physician providers, hospitals and clinics, pharmacists, medical billing companies and specialists, durable medical equipment companies, and even patients. People involved with online pharmacy websites can also be at risk of criminal prosecution.

Health care fraud cases are remarkably intricate and complicated. In addition, health care prosecutions and convictions can have serious consequences, including incarceration, fines, and possibly losing the right to practice in the medical industry. Defending such cases requires significant investigation, document review and analysis of the materials in the government's possession. Quite often, a good criminal defense attorney will want to use his or her own experts when defending against health care fraud allegations.

At Kish & Lietz, we regularly handle complex health care fraud prosecutions. We are accustomed to handling the massive number of documents involved in these cases. We hire our own specialists when we defend our clients, trained professionals such as accountants, auditors, retired FBI agents and the like. Our attorneys are accomplished, aggressive, and prepared to handle these challenging cases. If you would like to talk with us about such a case, please feel free to call us at (404) 588-3991, or contact us online.