Long-Term Implications of Federal Healthcare Fraud

When people think of penalties for federal convictions, most people take only prison time and fines into consideration. However, when facing a federal health care fraud conviction, much more is on the line.  Below, we give a basic outline of the far-reaching repercussions of a health care fraud conviction.  However, only a federal health care fraud attorney in DC can explain how these penalties may apply to your unique case.

Additional Penalties For Federal Health Care Fraud

In addition to the immediate penalties imposed by the court, including fines, repayment of restitution, forfeiting the gains from the fraudulent scheme, and either probation or prison, other ramifications can include the loss of business and professional licenses, loss of the ability to have further involvement in government programs, significant difficulties in future employment because of a federal fraud conviction on the record, which frankly looks very bad to potential future employers, and lots of other government benefits and other certain rights.

With a federal felony conviction individuals might be looking at loss of the right to possess firearms, the right to vote, the right to hold office. Thus, it is clear that there are some far-reaching ramifications for a federal health care fraud conviction.

How Do Prosecutors Treat Healthcare Fraud Cases?

Health care fraud cases are being prosecuted very intensely because healthcare fraud is so pervasive in our system. Medicare and Medicaid alone account for approximately a trillion dollars. When this amount of money at play, there is the potential for a great deal of fraud to take place. It has been estimated that the cost of healthcare fraud, when combining the actual losses through the fraud with the cost of investigating and prosecuting that fraud, amounts to about 10% of the actual money involved with these programs. That’s a huge amount—in the order of billions and billions of dollars.

The government knows this is an area where huge amounts of money are being fraudulently taken from the government to benefit individuals, and as such, they have designated specific task forces as well as specific prosecutorial groups aimed solely at targeting this type of fraud. The federal government will throw everything at one of these cases because they take this type of fraud very seriously.

Why Is It Important To Have An Attorney With Experience Dealing With This Type Of Evidence?

Anyone who has been charged with a federal offense can benefit from the services of an experienced criminal defense attorney who works in federal court, which is a different animal altogether than state court. Specific to healthcare fraud, you want to have an attorney who is experienced in dealing with these types of charges and this type of investigation by the government, meaning extensive investigations that incorporate documents, wiretapping (if a conspiracy is suspected), multiple witnesses, and multiple different federal and state agencies all gathering evidence.

In a case like this, you’re going to want to have a defense attorney who can handle a case of this size complexity and who has experience facing up against the very best prosecutors that the government has, especially when you’re going in front of extremely knowledgeable and seasoned judges. You want to make sure that you got the attorney who understands all of the different intricacies of this type of case and is not afraid to fight for you against the best the government has.