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Feds Arrest Several Riverside Hospital Officials as Part of Nationwide Medicaid Fraud Crackdown

Posted byHoumanitarian
Houston Chronicle

(Terri Langford, Houston Chronicle)
After 30 years as CEO of one of Houston’s most historic hospitals, Earnest Gibson III, along with his son and five others, was arrested on Thursday – part a national Medicare fraud sweep involving $430 million in bogus billings and 91 health care providers in seven states.

If the allegations against the 68-year-old Gibson are true, that he and others at the hospital bilked the Medicare program of $158 million over a period of more than seven years, it could prove lethal for Riverside, once the primary hospital for the city’s black population.

Gibson and his son Earnest Gibson IV, 35, were charged with 13 counts: conspiracy to commit health care fraud; conspiracy to defraud the United States and pay and receive health care kickbacks; one count of money laundering and ten counts of violating the anti-kickback statute.

Video Link: US Dept of Justice and Health & Human Services officials announce indictments in 7 cities (CBS News)

They are among dozens of individuals who were arrested or surrendered Thursday as indictments were unsealed nationwide. The Gibsons are accused of teaming up with Riverside’s previously indicted assistant administrator, Mohammad Khan, who pleaded guilty in the scheme in February.

Together, the indictment alleges, the three created a plan that paid up to $3,200 in cash to “patient recruiters.” The recruiters, in turn, would pay Houston-area group-home owners to send patients to Riverside’s satellite clinics offering “partial hospitalization programs” for the mentally ill.
(Read the full story at the Houston Chronicle)

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