“Misuse of USA Patriot Act Leads to Exposure of Medicare/Medicaid Fraud Scheme Costing Taxpayers Tens of Billions of Dollars”
Kansas City, MO (PRWEB) March 10, 2005 -- “If not for the USA Patriot Act the
Kansas City based firm Medical Supply Chain, Inc. may have never uncovered the
massive fraud scheme which robbed U.S. taxpayers of tens of billions of dollars
says President and CEO Samuel Lipari”. In attempting to right the wrong done to
his company by U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:) and Piper Jaffray's (NYSE:) conspiratorial,
malicious and unjustified use of the USA Patriot Act to keep his company out of
the health care supply market, Lipari and his legal team have uncovered a scheme
that they believe spans three decades and involves just about every major player
in the U.S. Healthcare supply industry as well as at least one major bank and
one major investment firm. The complaint, also filed against Novation,
University Healthsystem Consortium (UHC), Voluntary Hospitals of America (VHA),
Neoforma (NYSE:) and their chief executives, provides a detailed analysis of how
the fraud was created and perpetrated with the help of health care Group
Purchasing Organizations (GPO’s) Novation and Premier, whose questionable
business practices are surprisingly protected by a Federal Safe Harbor and
supported by a number of prominent hospital CEOs.
Medical Supply’s complaint details how the defendant hospital suppliers are
conspiring with competing distributors and manufacturers including General
Electric’s (NYSE:) well known Global Healthcare Exchange (GHX), to artificially
inflate hospital supplies by as much as $50 billion dollars a year in a
conspiracy involving kickbacks, consulting fees to hospital administrators,
extortion and commercial bribes all in an effort to limit what products can be
purchased by American hospitals and who can sell them.
Medical Supply Chain's successful entry into the market for medical supplies
would have surely led to lower cost for medical supplies and equipment and
curtailed the profits coming from the sector and therefore the earnings
generated by investment firm Piper Jaffray (NYSE:), who at one time had seventy
percent of its investments in health care supply stocks. To prevent this from
happening, U.S Bancorp (NYSE:) and Piper Jaffray apparently believed they had no
choice other than their malicious use of the USA Patriot Act to destroy Medical
Supply Chain's ability to raise capital and launch its
enterprise.
Additional companies implicated in the
complaint but not charged are Premier Inc., Global Healthcare Exchange (GHX)
Johnson & Johnson Healthcare Systems (NYSE:), GE Medical Systems (NYSE:),
Baxter Healthcare Corp. (NYSE:) Medtronic USA Inc. (NYSE:), Cardinal Health
(NYSE:), McKesson (NYSE:) and Abbott Labs, Inc. among others.
About
Medical Supply Chain, Inc.
Medical Supply Chain, Inc. is a worldwide provider
of web-based supply chain solutions serving health care communities and their
trading partners. Privately held, the company was founded in May of 2000 with a
mission to deliver enabling supply chain technology in health care. The
company’s products are completely hosted and built entirely on applications and
services that combine simplicity and power. These applications and services are
rapidly deployed through training, management and certification programs
delivering a much more cost efficient supply chain solution. To learn more about
Medical Supply Chain visit: http://www.MedicalSupplyChain.com
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/3/prweb216682.htm