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The Office of the Inspector General in the United States Department of Health and Human Services has long maintained a website listing their “most wanted” health care fugitives. The individuals contained on this list are wanted on charges related to health care fraud and abuse, ranging from billing the Medicare program for services that were not provided or were not medically necessary, to paying kickbacks to Medicare beneficiaries to induce them to cooperate in submissions of false claims. The most wanted list is one of the tools the government uses in its health care fraud enforcement efforts.
Today, the OIG’s office announced a new “most wanted” list – this one is for “deadbeat parents,” those parents who do not pay court ordered child support payments and fall under federal jurisdiction. While most child support payment issues are handled by the States, the federal government can get involved if the child lives in a different state from the parent who owes the child support, and the parent has been in arrears for over one year or owes more than $5,000. The federal government can also get involved if the parent flees the state or country in order to avoid child support payments. The number one fugitive on this list owes more than a million dollars in child support payments.
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