Medicare Millions Lost - Dead Doctors

Scammers have found a lucrative source for squeezing money from Medicare: dead doctors.

Over seven years, the federal program for the elderly and disabled paid at least about $77 million — and possibly as much as $92 million — to purported medical equipment suppliers who used Medicare ID numbers of deceased physicians, says a report out Wednesday by congressional investigators.

Despite learning of the problem in 2001, the government failed to fix it, the report says. Investigators reviewed billing data submitted by equipment suppliers from 2000 to 2007 using the ID numbers of 1,500 deceased doctors.

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