By now, most Americans have heard about the Justice Department’s 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown, which uncovered $14.6 billion in fraudulent schemes involving Medicare and taxpayer funds. What you may not realize is that this kind of fraud is happening quietly and regularly, to people like me, and possibly to you.
In January 2023, I reviewed my Medicare Summary and noticed charges from Family Medical Care Plus Inc. in Wickliffe, Ohio, for COVID-19 tests I never ordered and never received. I immediately filed a Medicare fraud complaint.
But it didn’t stop there.
In April, I found more fraudulent charges, this time from Mars Lab Service Inc. in Chicago. I filed another complaint.
In July, I received more charges, this time backdated to August 2022, from Vcare Testing Centre Corp., again in Chicago. I filed again.
Later that same month, I was charged for tests supposedly from Pharmacon Pharmacy Inc. in Brooklyn, NY. Then came another charge from Sval, located in McKinney, Texas. Complaint after complaint, the fraud kept coming.
Seven months into this pattern, I thought things couldn’t get worse. Then my August 2023 Medicare statement listed a charge of $2,985 for urinary catheters from G&I Ortho Supply Inc. in Brooklyn. Medicare had already paid $1,831.42, and I was billed for the remaining $693.20. I not only filed a fraud complaint, but I also took it to the Better Business Bureau.
In early 2024, CBS reporter Timothy McNicholas from Channel 12 in New York reached out to me. I didn’t know how he got my name, but I was relieved someone was finally investigating. I shared everything I had reported, redacted for privacy, because exposing these schemes is how we stop them.
Mr. McNicholas aired the story. Last week, he called to tell me that the people behind these scams had stolen one million Social Security numbers and defrauded Medicare out of $10.6 billion across all 50 states.
He made my day.
I want to see more people go to jail for defrauding the public, whether it’s at the federal level or right here at home. As a resident of Nashua, New Hampshire, I’ve also seen unethical conduct in local government. I’m no stranger to fraud, and I’ve learned firsthand that silence only enables abuse.
We, the people, must fight back. Check your Medicare statements. Report anything suspicious. File complaints. You have a right to speak up and protect yourself and others.
This is our money. Our system. And our responsibility.
