Dr. Mehmet Oz says new durable medical equipment providers are temporarily barred as federal officials investigate multimillion-dollar billing schemes.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz said Cuban nationals have exploited Medicare through fraudulent billing schemes and then fled to Cuba with the proceeds, prompting federal action to halt new approvals in a key sector of the program.
In comments reported by Fox News and shared in a public statement, Oz said CMS has imposed a six-month nationwide moratorium on the approval of new durable medical equipment providers. The announcement was also reflected in remarks he posted publicly.
“We announced a nationwide moratorium in this country for six months. You may not start a new durable medical equipment business,” Oz said. “They’re the ones who sell wheelchairs and canes, and we have enough to serve the American people … you’re not even providing equipment. You’re stealing their beneficiary number. You’re pretending — headfake! — to ship stuff, you never ship any goods. You have no payroll. No one works for you. You never sell any products to anybody. You literally create a fake business.”
Oz said that in certain cases businesses allegedly owned by Cuban nationals billed Medicare for large sums without providing equipment, including wheelchairs and canes intended for beneficiaries. According to his remarks, some entities billed as much as $5 million in a single month for what he described as nonexistent services.
“Many of these businesses are owned by Cuban nationals, by the way,” Oz said. “They bill falsely for $5 million for a month of fake stuff. They flee back to Cuba. We try to go after the money. It’s already gone. It’s been shipped overseas, and everyone’s looking around to see who’s the last guy standing.”
He characterized the activity as “weaponized” fraud and said, “This fraud is weaponized … we can’t allow it to continue.” His statement was also reflected in a separate post on social media.
Oz has previously highlighted other alleged Medicare fraud schemes, including what he described as a Somali refugee-linked operation in Minnesota and long-standing Medicare fraud involving Armenian and Russian groups in California. Social media posts discussing related investigations were also circulated online.
President Donald Trump this week announced that Vice President JD Vance will lead what he described as a “war on fraud.” In an interview with Fox News, Vance said:
“How many illegal aliens are on Medicaid? We know that it’s billions and billions of dollars that should go to American citizens. It’s going to illegal aliens. How many fraudulent daycare centers have been set up where that money should go to American citizens to help their kids get into childcare? Instead, it’s being stolen from them by illegal aliens in our country…
There’s a whole host of tools that we have that have never been used, and the president and I talked about this a couple of months ago and said, ‘What if we just did everything that we could to stop the fraud that’s being committed against the American taxpayer?’ The president said, ‘Great idea, let’s do it,’ and we’re going to work on that very aggressively over the next year.”
The six-month moratorium applies nationwide to new durable medical equipment providers while CMS reviews enrollment and billing patterns. Federal officials have not released a detailed breakdown of the alleged Cuban-linked cases, and investigations are ongoing.
The administration has framed the enforcement effort as part of a broader initiative to combat fraud across federal benefit programs.
Original article
Comments