“Fiscal year 2016 is on pace to have the lowest level of federal prosecutions for health care fraud since FY 1998. The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during the first six months of FY 2016 the government reported 239 new health care fraud prosecutions. If this activity continues at the same pace, the annual total of prosecutions will be 478 for this fiscal year, down 23.2 percent from the past fiscal year and down 61.3 percent from five years ago. The Department of Health and Human Services was the lead investigative agency for roughly half — 49.4 percent — of health care fraud prosecutions in FY 2016. This department was followed by the FBI with 31.8 percent, the Department of Defense with 3.3 percent and the Drug Enforcement Agency with 2.5 percent. In relation to population, the Southern District of Florida (Miami) led the nation with 9.8 health care fraud prosecutions per million people, compared with 1.5 per million overall so far in FY 2016. In second place was the Eastern District of Missouri (St. Louis) with 9.6 prosecutions per million, followed by the Eastern District of Kentucky (Lexington) with 7.3 per million. For more details, including a twenty-year timeline of prosecutions and top district rankings, see the report at: http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/crim/424/“