Record Number of Federal Criminal Health Care Fraud Prosecutions Filed in FY 2011

The latest available data from the Justice Department show that federal health care fraud prosecutions reached an historic high last year. During the twelve months of FY 2011, the government reported 1,235 new health care fraud prosecutions — the largest number reported since separate tracking of this offense began twenty years ago. This number is up 68.9% over the past fiscal year, when the number of criminal prosecutions totaled 731 (see Table 1).

Numbers were pushed higher in part by the volume of activity in Puerto Rico, where assistant U.S. attorneys charged 548 defendants with health care fraud in FY 2011. Even if the unusually active record of prosecutors in Puerto Rico was set aside, health care fraud prosecutions nationally would still have reached their highest level in over a decade. The Southern District of Florida (Miami) led the nation in activity, accounting for nearly one out of every nine health care fraud prosecutions, followed by the Southern District of Texas (Houston). Together, these two districts accounted for over one out of every five health care fraud prosecutions.

The comparisons of the number of defendants charged with health care fraud offenses are based on case-by-case information obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) under the Freedom of Information Act from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys.

The long term trend in health care fraud prosecutions going back twenty years is shown more clearly in Figure 1. The vertical bars in Figure 1 represent the number health care fraud prosecutions of this type recorded each fiscal year. Each presidential administration is distinguished by the color of the bars. To view trends month-by-month rather than year-by-year, see TRAC's monthly report series for the latest data.

via trac.syr.edu

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