Several people tied to the rural healthcare management company EmpowerHMS, which operated Oswego Community Hospital in Labette County until last year, when the medical facility closed after failing to pay employees for weeks, were indicted this week on conspiracy charges involving an alleged $1.4 billion criminal scheme. “This was allegedly a massive, multi-state scheme to use small, rural hospitals as a hub for millions of dollars in fraudulent billings of private insurers,” Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in a press release. “The charges announced today make clear that the department is committed to dismantling fraud schemes that target our health care system, however complex or elaborate.”
(Read more: Leavenworth Times)
