Marines and Fake Scar Cream
Fake Scar Cream That Nobody Needed Cost Military $65 Million
USA Today and Jezebel write that a scam was exposed in which Mederma scar cream normally costing $30 a tube, was sold to the US government for treating the US military at $14K per tube.
According to USA Today, a clinic in Tennessee, along with a shady pharmacy, managed to dupe the U.S. military out of $65 million by prescribing scar cream with a price tag of $14, 500 a tube to Marines who didn’t even need it and giving the soldiers who filled the prescriptions a cut of the profits.
Here’s how the scam worked: a clinic in Cleveland, Tennessee called Choice MD would remotely prescribe the exorbitantly-priced cream to Marines in California. Then, a pharmacy in Utah would fill those prescriptions and bill Tricare, a military insurance program, for millions. A former Marine has also been charged with recruiting active-duty Marines to receive the prescriptions.
It used to be that scars were a source of pride. Remember Red Badge of Courage? I guess some value a good kickback a little more.
Category: Politics
That TRICARE doesn’t have a mechanism in place to notice being billed 46,666% more than the going rate for a prescription is another crime here.
The real crime is that in July 2016 DoD awarded Health Net Federal Services and Humana Military contracts worth up to $18 billion and $41 billion, respectively, over nearly six years to manage the TRICARE health insurance system.
The DoD is a socialist experiment, and as such it will never be cost efficient.
Government money is nobody’s money, so they expend it like free water.
At least it wasn’t penis enhancing cream.
*furiously googles the internetz*
That’s some funny stuff, Slow Joe.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
I’d venture to say that the former Marine charged will soon be an “ex” Marine. And I’d have to agree with Mason. There is no one or no way that someone would not notice $14.5K billing for a tube of cream? Makes the $600.00 hammers and toilet seats from awhile back pale. smh
And yet visible scars will get you a 0% disability rating. No big deal, you say?
Well in CA, at least, that would get you AND YOUR CHILDREN in-state tuition at a UC school. Not a small deal.
“Teh gubbernmint his brok’n, WEZZ NEED MOR!!” -Every dingbat Socialist ever
Someone always benefits from fraud, waste and abuse but we all lose from the same.
Jeez, for $132.00 for a 4.5oz tube, they could’ve gotten real stuff (StriVectin SD) on Amazon… slow (not magic, nothing is) but does get the body to re-absorb scar tissue.
I’ve got plenty of scars. Doc’s always ask if I want to go surgical route to have them removed/lightened/touched up. Why?
Scars are tattoos with better stories behind them.
I love to show my THR scar.
This is only the tip of the iceberg! There has been a bunch of dot heads trying to scam Medicare for millions! They call me at least 10 times a day wanting to send me a free back brace, neck brace, pecker brace, all for free! They send you a $50 back brace and then turn around and bill Medicare over $1k for that stupid brace. They have also been trying to give me free pain cream, when I ask them what’s in it, they usually hang up! I have called the Medicare fraud line, the sent me to the FTC, I filed a report with them and gave them all the spoof numbers they called me from and still nobody does anything! I get so sick of getting their calls all damn day I could spit!!! I have no idea how they got my information or phone number. No matter are rude and vulgar you get with them, they still keep calling me! I wish there was someway I could get these assholes to quit calling me all day and night!!!
Rant Over!
WW, do you have straight Mcare (A/B) or a Med Adv plan? If Med Adv call your plan’s fraud hotline. Unfortunately it’s wack a mole with these fraudsters. I’m chasing some down myself but luckily it’s only $1200 a tube.
Thanks Fish, I have called them all and they can’t seem to find their asshole with both hands a flashlight and a roadmap! I may end up just changing my number to get rid of them! Keep up the good fight!!
Some phone services come with call blocking features. Mine (landline … yeah, I know) does not. So I bought a call blocker. Press the thing during or after the call and before the next call and that number is blocked until the end of time. The problem? These scumbags change their numbers frequently, sometimes every day or so. The device costs about $75. The ones that piss me off the most are those telling me the IRS or Social Security ‘police’ are on the way to arrest me. I block them every few days. It doesn’t do much good. They return under a different number. They are the lowest of scum, preying upon the elderly, who as a rule I believe to be more trusting, and the unsophisticated. Damn, I despise white collar criminals.
Let’s all have a safe week … Blessings
WW,
I have a scammer that keeps/kept calling me, until I’d had enough, and told him to suck his mother’s cock and lick his father’s cunt. Haven’t heard from him in awhile.
Willy, you need to get the best of these scammers however you can. Here’s a couple I have used many times and absolutely pissed the scammer off to where he or she would hang up. Enjoy and practice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZYi6cAk4t8
Somehow I just keep hearing Shane Falco,
I wish I could say something classy and inspirational, but that just wouldn’t be our style. Pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever. It’s been an honor sharing the field of battle with you.
My torso looks like it came in second place in a Samurai sword fight. Heart bypass, with two re-entries for sternum repair, bowel exploratory, bowel resection, lung resection, and appendectomy. If I got that scar cream I wouldn’t have anything to talk about at cocktail parties!
The Mederma Scar Cream really does work. I used it years ago to reduce a scar. It works wonders but you have to keep applying it every day for like 6 months.
The key ingredient in all of these scar reduction creams is… onion juice. No lie.
For a while, the thing to do at rage/dance parties when you were out clubbing is to put Preparation-H on your face and arms. It drew out the excess liguid from your tissues and gave you a chisled look, making the muscles more defined.
It’s a crazy world.
Scars are tattoos for worthwhile people. Especially baby stretchmarks
These dudes are taking advantage of Marines who may have remedial math skills.
Not good.
If the federal gov’t wasn’t so stupid about being swindled out of billions of dollars every year by fraudsters, there would be way more than the 5.7 billion Trump wants for border barriers. Over four billion goes to illegals filing fraudulent tax returns for tax refunds for taxes they didn’t pay. We have become a nation of chumps.
I have a scar that runs from my eyebrow to the back of my head…450 stitches to put my scalp back on…
the portion on my forehead gets sunburned very, very easily and itches constantly (after 20 years, no less)…I can’t even get sunblock from the VA or the Hospital here….
But these guys can get “scar cream”?
I don’t get it…
Also (I tried this at home), don’t use sun screens with any level of pain relief in them on a sunburned forehead scar…the scar cannot absorb it and it just runs off into your eyes…talk about red eye!