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Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse

Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse.

Detroit Home Health Owner To Serve 30 Years for $33 Million Scam

The owner of four Detroit area-based home health companies was sentenced to 30 years behind bars for a $33 million Medicare fraud scheme he played a role in.

Zafar Mehmood, owner of Access Care Home Care Inc., Patient Care Home Care Inc., Hands on Healing Home Care Inc. and All State Home Care Inc., was involved in a Medicare scam that took place from 2006 through 2011, according to the Department of Justice.

Mehmood was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, four counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to pay and receive health care kickbacks, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, two counts of money laundering and two counts of obstruction of justice, court documents show.

Through this scheme, Mehmood obtained patients by paying cash kickbacks to recruiters, who then paid cash to patients to convince them to sign up for home health care with Mehmood’s companies. Mehmood also paid kickbacks to physicians to refer patients to his companies for unnecessary home health care services, the evidence in court showed.

Along with co-conspirators, Mehmood falsified records to make it appear that patients were qualified to receive certain services that Medicare paid over $33 million for during the six years the conspiracy took place.

Source: http://homehealthcarenews.com/2016/10/detroit-home-health-owner-to-serve-30-years-for-33-million-scam/

ADHD: A Destructive Psychiatric Hoax

Earlier this year, Alan Schwarz, an investigative reporter for the New York Times, published his latest book: ADHD Nation.

The blurb on the jacket states:

“More than 1 in 7 American children get diagnosed with ADHD—three times what experts have said is appropriate—meaning that millions of kids are misdiagnosed and taking medications such as Adderall or Concerta for a psychiatric condition they probably do not have.  The numbers rise every year.  And still, many experts and drug companies deny any cause for concern.  In fact, they say that adults and the rest of the world should embrace ADHD and that its medications will transform their lives.

In ADHD Nation, Alan Schwarz examines the roots and the rise of this cultural and medical phenomenon: The father of ADHD, Dr. Keith Conners, spends fifty years advocating drugs like Ritalin before realizing his role in what he now calls ‘a national disaster of dangerous proportions’; a troubled young girl and a studious teenage boy get entangled in the growing ADHD machine and take medications that backfire horribly; and Big Pharma egregiously over-promotes the disorder and earns billions from the mishandling of children (and now adults).”

Source: https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/10/adhd-destructive-psychiatric-hoax/

Five companies charged in telephone scam that targeted Canadians, Americans

They bought Internet phone devices in bulk, used thousands of prepaid debit cards to launder money from North America to India and left behind elderly victims who were bullied into forking over thousands of dollars.

U.S. authorities announced on Thursday that they had charged 56 people and five companies operating call centres in India in a case that offers a peek into a widespread telephone scam that has swindled millions of dollars from people in Canada and the United States.

While the allegations unveiled on Thursday do not mention Canada, the indictment says the victims were “in the U.S. and elsewhere.”

An RCMP spokeswoman said the force believes there might be a Canadian connection.

“Victims have reported that at times a caller would identify themselves as [an Internal Revenue Service] agent to the victim, and then change tactics when he/she realized that in Canada there is no IRS,” Sergeant Penny Hermann told The Globe and Mail on Thursday in response to a question.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/five-companies-charged-in-international-telephone-scam/article32562168/