More than three dozen people in Alaska are charged with fraud in a crackdown on health care and social services, federal and state officials announced Thursday.
Altogether, 40 people charged were part of an ongoing collaboration between various agencies. Of those, 33 people individuals were part of a national initiative announced Thursday that led to charges against 243 people accused of bilking Medicare and Medicaid.
Six of the other Alaska cases are state charges alleging welfare fraud, and one other is a state case charging Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend fraud.
The health care cases in Alaska focused on individuals working as personal care attendants to provide home-based care. They are accused of billing Medicaid for services that were supposedly provided but never delivered.
The fraud cases altogether totaled $648,000, officials said.
In the federal health fraud case, five Anchorage residents have been indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, among other counts. The federal charges say that the five conspired between 2011 in 2014 to make false claims for services provided by personal-care attendants, Assistant U.S. Kevin Feldis said.
"So we've got a group of people who were allegedly providing those services and allegedly receiving them when in fact they were doing things like being out of the country or overbilling for those services," Feldis said.
The 28 state health fraud cases are predominantly against individuals who worked as personal care attendants for eight different agencies, none of which have been charged, said John Skidmore, director of the state Department of Law's criminal division.
In the Permanent Fund Dividend case, a Coast Guard official is accused of falsifying military records in order to qualify for the dividend, a payout from the state's oil savings account that's distributed annually to Alaskans who have lived in the state for a full calendar year. The six public assistance cases amount to about $85,000 in fraud, Skidmore said.
Skidmore was one of only a few officials to speak at the announcement of the cases. But he noted that officials lined up behind him were all looking for fraud in public services.
"And when we find it, we will come after you," he said.