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Feds Launch Criminal Investigation Into Insurance Defrauding of U.S. Military

Pentagon
Aerial view of the Pentagon / Reuters
June 10, 2016

The Defense Criminal Investigative Services has launched an investigation into an insurance scam where clinics offered people in the U.S. military a $50 Walmart gift card for samples of their urine and DNA.

CBS's Jim Axelrod and Emily Rand reported how this investigation unfolded.

A heap of trash dumped into a shed at a clinic near Fort Hood contained soldiers' social security numbers, medical information, DNA specimens, and more than 60 photocopies of military IDs.

As CBS News showed you last night, makeshift clinics offered soldiers $50 Walmart gift cards in exchange for their urine and DNA.

The urine and DNA samples were sent to Cockerell Dermatopathology located in Dallas, Texas. These samples were then drug tested for things that were largely unnecessary and was billed to Tricare, the military's insurance company, for millions of dollars.

Not only is this not the first time Tricare has been subject to scamming, but now the company is out $1.3 billion.

Until April, retired two-star General Richard Thomas ran Tricare. As CBS News reported last year, claims for custom made prescription creams called compounds had grown exponentially until the Pentagon stopped paying for most of them due to their dubious medical value.

Axelrod asked whether being out $1.3 billion was due to the "fraudulent billing of compound drugs."

"Absolutely, it was," said Thomas. "That was the biggest single source of us being overspent."

To help the Pentagon get out of this hole, they have reallocated $240 million from its fuel budget.

Cockerell Demapathology will also refund costs.

Cockerell Dermatopathology tells CBS News there's a possibility individuals didn't follow the company's compliance requirements, and is voluntarily returning significant amounts of money.

Published under: Fraud , Pentagon