Medicare Is Hit by Dead-Doctor Billing Scams

WASHINGTON -- The federal government paid scam artists nearly $100 million for claims of wheelchairs, canes, prescription drugs and other items submitted under the names of dead doctors in recent years, according to a Congressional investigation.

The 478,500 claims, filed under the names of 16,500 to 18,200 dead physicians, got as much as $92.8 million in payments from 2000 to 2007 from Medicare, the federal health-insurance program for the elderly and disabled. The actual number could be much more than $100 million because the probe counted only claims filed at least a year after those doctors died, according to a ...