An addiction treatment chain based in Rhode Island is charged with millions of dollars in health care fraud, money laundering and identity theft.
U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha says investigators discovered Recovery Connection Centers of America didn't provide patients with full counseling sessions for addiction treatment, but billed Medicare, Medicaid and other insurance providers.
At a press conference announcing the culmination of this investigation and resulting criminal charges and arrests, Cunha said, “What makes the fraud scheme that we have charged today particularly pernicious – is that not only was this scheme, as we allege, designed to defraud by enriching these defendants with federal and private healthcare dollars they did not earn, but that in the process it cheated a vulnerable population of recovery patients out of the full, genuine support and treatment that they need to have a chance at recovery.”
"Today’s arrests serve as a strong reminder that we will not tolerate fraud schemes that target our federal health care programs, as alleged, nor will we accept anything less than high quality care for the people served by those programs,” said Special Agent in Charge Phillip M. Coyne of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General. “Our agency’s mission is to protect the well-being of the public and the integrity of the federal health care system, and we will hold accountable those who seek to exploit the opioid epidemic for personal gain.”
Prosecutors also allege one of the owners claimed that he practiced medicine and fraudulently wrote prescriptions in other doctors' names.
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