Justice Department charges 455 people in $6.5bn health care fraud sweep
The Justice Department announced charges against 455 people on June 23 in a two-week sweep targeting more than $6.5 billion in allegedly false insurance claims. Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald said the cases, filed or unsealed since June 8, spanned unnecessary wound-care billing, exploitative mental health services aimed at homeless people, kickbacks between hospice operators and funeral home staff, and cardiovascular testing fraud.
The flagship case charges Florida physician Jason Finkelstein over an alleged $89 million scheme built on unnecessary heart screenings marketed to college athletes, with normal results certified without genuine review — in one instance, prosecutors say, spending about 11 seconds on 63 images. A teenage patient whose abnormalities went undetected later died during a basketball game.
These periodic “takedowns” bundle many separate investigations into a single announcement, so the headline total reflects accumulated cases rather than a single scheme. The recurring pattern — billing for care that was unnecessary, substandard, or never delivered — points to the enforcement weak spots in how public and private insurers pay claims.