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To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (27)	10/21/1998 7:21:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 178

ot Miami Medicare Fraud Ring Cracked, 39 Held - U.S. 04:45 p.m Oct 21, 1998 Eastern By Jim Loney MIAMI (Reuters) - Federal agents dismantled a massive Medicare fraud ring in which doctors, nurses and patients conspired to bilk U.S. taxpayers of $10 million with fake home health-care claims, prosecutors said Wednesday. The Miami U.S. Attorney's Office unsealed three indictments charging 39 people, including seven doctors and 12 nurses, with fraud against Medicare by submitting bogus claims for services for homebound Medicare beneficiaries. They said the sophisticated ring, which operated in the Miami area, was part of a $3 billion health-care fraud problem in southern Florida, home to thousands of the elderly and a vast array of financial scams. ''It's a fraud against our parents and our grandparents, taking money away from health care for those people,'' said Al Hallmark, regional inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services. ''They're stealing the money just as if they were doing it with a gun.'' The indictments, the result of a three-year undercover investigation by the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and other U.S. agencies, said the scam used Miami-based Amitan Health Services, a Medicare-certified home health agency, to funnel fraudulent claims to the U.S. health program for the elderly. Amitan's owners, Ramon Dominguez and Rene Corvo, worked with a ring of doctors and nurses to overbill for services provided to Medicare beneficiaries or to submit fake bills for home health services that were never provided, prosecutors said. Amitan and its subcontractors controlled pools of Medicare patients, most of whom did not qualify for home health services, prosecutors said. ''In some instances, the nurses would simply, literally, clean up the patient's room and then Medicare would be billed for skilled nursing visits,'' Miami U.S. Attorney Thomas Scott said. Kickbacks were paid to people who recruited Medicare patients for Amitan, the indictment alleges. Prosecutors said Amitan had a group of employees fabricating medical records and claim forms and doctors and nurses signing the forms or allowing their names to be used. The fraud resulted in at least $10 million in Medicare losses, they said. The FBI cracked the ring by buying and operating a small home health agency called Perfect Nursing, which solicited business and funneled it through Amitan. Dominguez and Corvo were among the 39 people indicted. They face charges of conspiracy and fraud. Scott said the ring was part of a nationwide Medicare fraud problem that raised health-care costs for every American, and he criticized patients who failed to report fraud. ''Some of the estimates we have estimate that as high as 40 percent, four out of every ten dollars, is fraud, cheating,'' he said. ''The patients are an integral part of the scheme, which wouldn't work without them.'' Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (27)	10/22/1998 6:17:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 178

NATO, West Skeptical of Yugoslavia Thursday, 22 October 1998 P R I S T I N A , Y U G O S L A V I A (AP) COUNTERING WESTERN demands that it do more to defuse the Kosovo crisis, the government on Thursday repeated claims it has withdrawn all special troops sent into the province to suppress ethnic Albanian separatists. Such a withdrawal is a key condition of the U.S.-brokered agreement to achieve lasting peace in the embattled province. The pro-government daily Vecernje Novosti quoted unidentified police sources as saying that the only troops still in Kosovo were those that had been there before the crackdown began eight months ago. NATO and Western governments, however, have challenged such claims. A senior U.S. envoy, Christopher Hill, told reporters in Pristina: "We are not satisfied with the level of compliance." In Paris, French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said the departure of government forces was "very advanced, but that is not enough." There were further signs that tension remains high in the province, despite the agreement reached Oct. 12 between Milosevic and U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke. Laura Boldrini of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said ethnic Albanians who returned two weeks ago to the village of Poklek fled again this week because of intimidation by Serb police. "It's a never-ending story," Boldrini said. "It's going ahead very slowly in terms of (refugee) returns." International observers in the field said they heard increased tank and artillery fire in some areas, after three days of relative calm. Also, the ethnic Albanian-run Kosovo Information Center said four members of an ethnic Albanian family - three of them children - were killed and two were wounded early Thursday when Yugoslav soldiers fired on them near Djakovica on the Albanian border. The center said the victims were trying to return to their homes from Albania. There was no confirmation from government officials. NATO has given Milosevic until Tuesday to comply with U.N. demands or risk airstrikes. The demands include removing all special troops sent to Kosovo during the crackdown and allowing tens of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees to return safely to their homes. Milosevic also agreed to talks with ethnic Albanians on the future of the province, which is part of Yugoslavia's largest republic, Serbia. About 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million people are Albanian, and most want independence or self-rule. The rebel Kosovo Liberation Army has insisted it will not abandon its goal of independence. The United States and the Europeans reject independence but support some form of autonomy for Kosovo. Despite the tension, international officials report some progress toward normalcy. Convoys of relief supplies, for example, have traveled unhindered in recent weeks. Two U.N. convoys totaling 16 trucks carried baby food, flour, biscuits, mattresses and other supplies to Pec and Djakovica in western Kosovo on Thursday. Meanwhile, efforts to organize the 2,000-person team to verify compliance with the peace deal appeared stalled because the nations that the people would come from are concerned about safety and want the U.N. Security Council to endorse the plan first. "Obviously, the physical security of 2,000 people in a zone of turmoil, of conflict, is of utmost importance," said the American head of the operation, William G. Walker.