Articles Posted in Health Care Fraud

Michael B. Cohen, Esq is a Criminal Defense Attorney specializing in federal crimes as well as the defense of state charges such as drug cases, fraud, and all associated criminal matters. He maintains two offices in South Florida and a separate office located in the New York Metropolitan area.

You can follow his twitter feed to read similar diversified blog posts. His South Florida website can be found at https://www.southflalaw.com and his New York City site can be accessed at: http://www.nyfederalattorney.com

Many experts have stated that the current opioid crisis that has galloped rapidly throughout the United States can be attributed to pharmaceutical companies convincing the medical populace as a whole, that patients would not develop an addiction to the opioid pain relievers they manufactured. This resulted in what many believe is the starting point when healthcare providers began to prescribe them at higher rates.

Following up on an article posted here last September, the second of five defendants who was convicted of bribery charges that stemmed from a fraud that amounted to millions in duplicitous Medicaid and food stamps payments will be released from a Residential Reentry Management (RRM) field office, a halfway house operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Miami.

Alejandro Lomoso was the last to be sentenced earlier this year and was given the second lightest punishment of the five defendants involved in the fraud by a Federal Judge. He is scheduled to be released from the facility on Sept. 6. His release will be followed by six months of house arrest with electronic monitoring.

Lomoso a former Social Security Administration employee admitted at trial that he accepted roughly $10,000 in bribes from the masterminded of the racket; Irma Davidian.

A South Florida woman is the alleged leader in a healthcare fraud conspiracy that’s cost the state’s Medicaid program more than $2.7 million, according to federal prosecutors.

Irma Davidian, of Boca Raton, through her husband David’s company American Advisory Associates has been accused of being the key player in a scam that involved payments to employees of the Department of Children and Families as well as the Social Security Administration in exchange for submitting fraudulent applications on behalf of her client base which she attained by advertising in newspapers.

According to court documents, Davidian ran ads in local publications claiming she could acquire government benefits such as food stamp and Medicaid benefits no matter what an individual’s circumstances were. Her fee for this service varied from $2,000 to $5,000.

Her main contact at the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) was Gladys Roman, who worked as an as an interview clerk for the agency. Roman was paid by Davidian to submit falsified documentation that would give Davidian’s clients a much greater chance for their applications to be approved. She entered the data from her home computer, as well as from a local library. After the information was inputted she would inform another employee, George Lopez, which of the applications needed to be approved. Since cases were assigned at random, if Lopez found applications assigned to other case workers he easily overrode the assignment of the case and reassigned the applications to his oversight by accessing a department computer within the DCF system. Both suspects are residents of Pompano Beach.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office over a period of about two years, Davidian paid both Roman and Lopez approximately $1,000 a month for their role in the fraud.

Similarly, Davidian had two connections that worked as claims representatives for the Social Security Administration. In the same type of setup, Maria Sanchez of Pembroke Pines and Alejandro Lomoso of Southwest Ranches both employees’ of the SSA accepted payments from Davidian of $15,000 and $9,500 respectively for processing modified applications over approximately the same period of time.

All in all, Davidian is charged with conspiracy to commit bribery in programs receiving federal funds, commit health care fraud, and conspiracy to give a gratuity to a public official. Roman, Lopez, Sanchez and Lomoso are all charged with conspiracy to commit bribery in programs receiving federal funds and commit health care fraud.

Davidian faces a 10-year prison sentence and a fine of up to $500,000. Her subordinates all face a five-year prison sentence and a fine of up to $250,000 each.

Many of her clients from Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties have also been arrested and charged with Medicaid Fraud. Thirteen of her clients were arrested in July. Among them is former NHL hockey player Sergei Berezin and wife Lyudmila Ustakova who are currently residing in Boca Raton. According to authorities, the pair deceptively billed Medicaid more than $67,000 between 2010 and 2013, with falsified documents acquired through Davidian’s scheme and were arrested on two counts of fraud. Four other Russian immigrants were also arrested in the sting.

Berezin owns a house valued at close to $1 million. He told a confidential informant during the undercover investigation that his income was approximately $100,000 annually from rental properties and fees paid to him for training hockey players.

Berezin played for numerous International, American and Canadian hockey teams between 1990 and 2004. He also played in International championship games including the 1994 Olympics for Russia. His most notable moment on the ice was when he scored the 10,000th home ice goal for the Montreal Canadiens in 2002.

To read an article about the charges against Berezin and his wife, written on palmbeachpost.com that was originally posted as a blurb on my Google+ page, click here and scroll down to the 7/29/15 entry.

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Nestor’s Health Services, Inc. is now non-operational. This seems to be the story with most articles I’ve featured on my blog dealing with Health Care Fraud that’s taken place in the South Florida area over the past year. The word “defunct” seems to come up a lot.

With this latest article, the total amount of money I’ve reported which has been reimbursed by Medicare for fraudulent billing is fast approaching the $100 million dollar mark. But in all fairness, one of the stories posted here involved a reimbursement of $33 million by itself. So when Cruz Sonia Collado, the owner/operator of Nestor’s admitted to swindling Medicare out of $6.5 Million it seemed to be a small portion of the overall pot.

And that’s just a minuscule cut of the more than $100 billion (with a B) dollars in fraudulent claims paid out by Medicare to the dark side of the health care industry on an annual basis. And those in the know say that the actual total may be three times that amount.

But even looking at the big picture, the government still doesn’t take kindly to instances of finding owners of Home Health Care Companies ripping off the federal health insurance program.

This particular case handed down justice rather quickly. It was only three months ago when federal authorities, in a nation-wide sting charged fifty residents of the Sunshine State for various Medicare fraud swindles. The total amount of persons charged across the country added up to ninety, of which sixteen were doctors, leaving South Florida Health Care Executives and associated workers as the area with the most, accounting for more than half of the suspects that were rounded up in May.

Tallying it up, twenty-six individual criminal cases were files with a total of close to seventy- million dollars in fraudulent Medicare claims involved. Cruz Sonia Collado was one of the many caught in the widespread net.

Yesterday, Collado pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to offer and pay health care kickbacks and offering and paying health care kickbacks in front of U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola in Florida Federal Court. The sum of the submissions to Medicare by Collado’s company totaled $6.5 million of which $6.1 million was paid out over a five year period between 2009 and this current year.

The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in tandem with the Office of Inspector General, Department of Health & Human Services (HHS-OIG) and was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force. Locally, it was under the direction of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section as well as the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.

Since the Medicare Fraud Strike Force was sanctioned seven years ago, it has charged more than 1,800 suspects who have as a group fraudulently billed Medicare for over $6 billion.

To find out more about this topic, and read more about it, click here to go to the general Fraud Cases page on my Website.

To read about my qualifications and what you should do if you are arrested and charged with this or any other crime, click here.


There are a myriad of fraud cases which can be bought in both the State and federal Courts for instance, fraud can be charged as a simple third degree felony in Florida for which a defendant can face up to five years maximum in jail or the fraudulent conduct involved may be charged as an organized scheme to defraud and depending on the amount involved may result in a statutory maximum punishment of 15 or 30 years in jail

In the federal courts fraud can be brought under the mail fraud, wire fraud securities fraud or bank, mortgage or housing fraud statutes. The elements of such crimes can be based upon a scheme to defraud where the wires (i.e. telephone computers and the like) are used or mail fraud (where the mail is used to perpetuate the fraud). Securities fraud charges can result from pump and dump schemes where based on false information an individual may circulate fraudulent news on the internet about a stock to “pump” up its value and then dump it after he has purchased the inflated stock at a discounted value well before the majority of investors are hurt while the fraudulent actor makes out “like a bandit” with the profit from the grossly inflated stock price.

To read other articles on this topic posted on my blog, click here
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Vladimir Kleyman, 42, a pharmacist and president of a compounding pharmacy in Lakewood, N.J., was charged by New Jersey authorities with being in violation of the federal healthcare program anti-kickback statute.

A compounding pharmacy is defined as a pharmacy where certain manufactured products are mixed to fit the distinctive necessities of certain patients’ requirements. This is achieved by the pharmacist combining suitable ingredients using several diverse tools. These medications are usually prepared for reasons of medical necessity. Examples of this process are altering a form of an existing medicine from a solid item such as a pill to a liquefied product also avoiding any non-essential ingredients that may cause an allergic reaction. This process is also used for obtaining exact dosages required or considered to be the best combination of a precise active ingredient or varying ingredients. The process can also be done for the purpose of adding a flavor or altering a texture of a specific prescription.

According to U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman’s office, Kleyman was arrested after being found to be in cahoots with a doctor from Toms River, N.J with one of his employees acting as an agent for the transactions. He is charged with paying the physician more than $50,000 in kick, encouraging him to refer prescriptions to his pharmacy.

Kleyman’s pharmacy, Prescriptions R US, also located in Lakewood utilized a middle-man to deliver recurring payments in cash that totaled into amounts of five figures to a N.J. doctor during a time frame of numerous months.

Mr. Kleyman appeared in Newark federal court in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge James Clark III on January 9 after an Indictment was unsealed containing allegations of his delivery of cash payments amounting to totals of no less than tens of thousands of dollars. The Indictment went on to specify that commencing in February of last year, Kleyman provided bribes in the amount of at least $50,000 in checks or cash by way of an individual in his employ who delivered the funds to a physician for the purpose of having the doctor authorize referral prescriptions, specifically for a pain cream made up of a blend of Ketamine, a Schedule III non-narcotic, Diclofenac, and Lidocaine as well as other compounded components which were prepared at Kleyman’s pharmacy, Prescriptions R US.

The complaint revealed the names of sixty-three patients that the pain cream had been prescribed for that was sent by the physician. The computer-generated list included at least 33 of 63 patients that were Medicare beneficiaries. The form was prepared by Kleyman or another individual who he employed or worked with in the scheme. Prescriptions R US did receive reimbursements from Medicare for the billing of more than $40,000 of the prescriptions which were referred by the induced physician separately and apart from other funds the pharmacy acquired from additional insurance providers from the health care industry.

Moreover, according to the complaint, in November and December 2013 there were a sequence of meetings held when the unnamed employee was given in excess of fifty thousand dollars in checks or cash from either Mr. Kleyman or his wife who also is an employee of the pharmacy knowing that the greater part of those funds were to be used to tempt the physician into accepting bribes for the purpose of referring the prescriptions to Prescriptions R US.

A conviction of the charges can levy a fine of up to twenty-five thousand dollars and a term of up to five years in prison.

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Emilio Amador, 46 brought potential patients to two South Florida Home Health Care companies in exchange for bribes and kickbacks while fully aware that those two companies would submit all costs to Medicare on behalf of the patients he referred to them for the supposed home health services they provided. Amador was a patient recruiter. He was also the owner/operator as well as president of Nation’s Best. He also pleaded guilty to relevant conduct for the fraudulent billing of approximately $30 million for his dealings associated to that company.

Earlier this month, Judge Federico Moreno sentenced Amador, to nine years in prison in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. His sentence was the result of his role in a $48 million scheme to defraud Medicare. Amador pleaded guilty to charges of two counts of receiving health care kickbacks and one count of conspiring to receive health care kickbacks this past September. Additionally at the conclusion of his stint behind bars, Amador has been ordered to a term of three years of supervised release. He has also been ordered to come up with $24 million in restitution, individually as well as jointly with other convicted co-defendants. But the $24 million in restitution is just a single drop in a very large bucket.

With Florida having the highest percentage of senior citizens in the United States with over 17%, according to the latest census report, it would be a logical conclusion to assume that health care services would also be the highest percentage in the country. It’s also reasonable to assume that health care, Medicare and Medicaid fraud would go hand-in-hand based on those statistics.

On a nationwide basis estimates of monies stolen through various methods in health care Medicare and Medicaid schemes are figured to be at least 100 billion; but according to some that are in the know regarding these statistics, that number is a low estimate. Other well-informed sources believe that the actual amount of stolen funds is closer in vicinity to 300 billion dollars annually.

Investigation and enforcement also generates a hefty tab. In total, last year’s costs (2012) amounted to over $217 million, broken down by the Federal government picking up over $162 million of the overall sum. There are fifty Medicaid Fraud Control Units which employ over 1,900 individuals including enforcement officers, as well as the FBI’s Federal Medicare Fraud Strike Force that through June of this year has brought charges against just short of 90 medical professionals including doctors and nurses in eight cities throughout the country, with schemes relating to Medicare fraud which has totaled close to $225 million in false billings according to government records. There are currently more than 400 law enforcement officers including agents from the FBI working to make the arrests in these types of cases in Miami, New York, Detroit, Los Angeles and other major US cities.

Florida is a breeding ground for Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Overall, the cost in trying to contain, arrest, and prosecute offenders is a multi-million dollar effort with hundreds of law enforcement officers working to detect and investigate these schemes throughout the state with the ever-present assistance of federal law enforcement agencies.

In this particular case, the sentencing of Amador was a segment of a Medicare Fraud Strike Force Operation that charged twenty-four South Florida residents in fraudulent billing schemes. It was part of a nationwide sweep that arrested and charged a total of ninety-eight people.

In February of this year, the heads of two Florida Home Health Care companies were sentenced as part of the $48 Million Health Care Fraud Scheme mentioned above. Rogelio Rodriguez, 44 was the president of Caring Nurse Home Health, Corp. and Raymond Aday, 49 the president of Good Quality Home Health Care Inc. were each sentenced to nine years, and more than four years respectively for their roles in the illegal billing scam. The sentencing was imposed after guilty pleas were accepted by the two in December 2012 for the Indictment which was made public earlier in October.

The Indictment charged them with one count each of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and it displayed that between the start of January 2006 through the period ending around mid-2011 the two companies submitted approximately $48 million in claims of which Medicare paid approximately $33 million. The claims submitted were for home health services that were either not medically necessary and/or not provided at all.

In Case number 13-20315-CR-Lenard which charged five defendants including Amador, the sentencing phase is now concluded. The other four defendants named in that individual case were Cristobal Gonzalez, Eduims Mora, Jose Contreras, and Elizabeth Monteagudo. All charges related to conspiracy to receive health care kickbacks and substantive counts of receiving kickbacks in connection with a federal health care program.

Monteagudo, 33, and Gonzalez, 39, both from Miami, were sentenced to serve 70 months and 46 months in prison respectively, followed by three years and two years of supervised release respectively. They were ordered to pay $3.5 million and $2 million in restitution respectively, jointly and severally with co-defendants. Mora and Contreras each received a 34-month prison sentence for their roles in the fraud.

To read other articles on this topic, some with the same defendants who faced other charges in different cases against them click here.

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Crimes relating to the Health Care Industry are one of the most costly issues that American taxpayers are forced to endure. The FBI has estimated that crimes of this nature cost taxpayers an average of $80 billion annually. Statistics show that as little as three percent of this money is recovered and in many cases whistle blowers get paid a substantial amount of the recovered funds for their participation in bringing the offenders of these criminalities to justice.

In an article posted here on August 20, our narrative conveyed a story of a married couple who pleaded guilty to the federal charge of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. Another of the charges that was originally levied against them in the indictment was the payment of kickbacks to patient recruiters in order to direct willing patients to Flores Home Health, the couple’s health care clinic. There, the therapy services offered turned out to be curatively deceitful and in many situations, not delivered in the least, although settlement by Medicare was conveyed for the fabricated and theoretical services rendered.

Elizabeth Monteagudo, 33, and Cristobal Gonzalez, 39, didn’t work for Flores Home Health but their job description of patient recruiters fit the same type of personnel that were paid by Marina Sanchez Pajon and Miguel Jimenez the owners of Flores. Yesterday, the two Miami residents pleaded guilty to receiving kickbacks for their part in a similar federal health care fraud; this scheme in its entirety netting $48 Million.

Throughout the duration of early 2009, concluding roughly in mid-2011, Monteagudo and Gonzalez operated as patient recruiters for Caring Nurse Home Health Care Corp., soliciting and receiving kickbacks and bribes from the owners and operators of the health care company in return for allowing the agency to bill the Medicare program on behalf of the recruited patients. Gonzalez also worked for Good Quality Home Health Care, Inc. in the same capacity. Comparable to the Flores case, these Medicare recipients were subsequently billed for therapy and home health care services that were medically needless or not provided at all, according to documents presented in court.

Additionally, Monteagudo who owned and operated a company named Starlite Home Health Agency Inc. also admitted to her participation with $7 million in fraudulent Medicare billings.

In a separate case that led to these two guilty pleas, the owner/operators of Caring Nurse Home Health Care Corp. and Good Quality Home Health Care, Inc. were sentenced to serve 9 years, and a little over 4 years in prison. On Feb. 27, 2013, Rogelio Rodriguez received the longer sentence while Raymond Aday was given the lesser. These sentences were announced subsequent to their guilty pleas in December 2012. Rodriguez was the owner of the two health care companies and Aday managed both. The two pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud which was charged in an indictment unsealed in October of last year. That indictment charged that between the period of January 2006 and June 2011, each of the two companies submitted claims in the area of $48 million for home health services that weren’t necessary medically, and in many cases not provided at all. In lieu of these falsified claims $33 million of the total amount billed was actually paid by Medicare.

According to the court documents from that case, Rodriguez and Aday colluded with patient recruiters with their ultimate goal being the illegitimate charging of Medicare for unnecessary services rendered. The documents also stated that both defendants paid bribes and kickbacks to the above-mentioned patient recruiters, as well as others.

According to the Department of Justice, nurses and office staff at both health care companies were also implicated for falsifying files of their patients in their attempt to make it seem that the Medicare beneficiaries qualified for services when they in fact did not.

In addition to the term of their incarceration, U.S. District Judge Federico A. Moreno sentenced Aday to pay $2.1 million and Rodriguez to pay $33 million in restitution. They will each also have to pay a fine of $100,000. The two were also penalized to a term of three years of supervised release at the completion of their prison terms.

Both cases were investigated by the FBI and Department of Health & Human Services-Office of the Inspector General, which was conveyed as a measure of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force.

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The family business was thriving. Between late 2009 and mid 2012 Flores Home Health, a Miami based health care agency billed and were paid roughly $8 million for the care and services they provided to their patients.

Marina Sanchez Pajon, 29 and Miguel Jimenez, 43, a married couple from Dade County found success in the health care industry. They put together a top-notch sales force of patient recruiters. They also had excellent “contacts” in doctors’ offices and clinics that were paid very well for providing clientele for the couple’s enterprise.

Jimenez controlled and managed the company’s everyday activities and oversaw all aspects of its operation. His wife Maria was responsible for supervising the “employees”, and taking care of the mountain of paperwork that is customary in this type of enterprise.

Regrettably, the patient recruiters of Flores Home Health were not compensated with a typical salary structure. They were given kickbacks and bribes to steer patients to the married couple’s clinic. Once the patients were attained they would receive home health and therapy services that were therapeutically pointless and in some cases, not provided at all. Their doctors’ office “contacts” were also retained by the inducements of bribes and payoffs that would provide the couple’s firm with medical certifications, therapy prescriptions, and various other required documents. These forms and documents made it possible for them to bill their “chief purchaser” for physical and occupational therapy provided to their patients. The firm’s “chief purchaser” was Medicare.

Flores Home Health is no longer operating and the said “employees” and “contacts” are now branded as coconspirators. On May 14, 2013 Pajon and Jimenez were indicted. The indictment charged them with the crimes of conspiracy to receive and pay health care kickbacks, conspiracy to commit health care fraud, and substantive kickback charges. At the time, The Asset Forfeiture Section of the Department of Justice that prosecutes criminal and civil asset forfeiture matters, dealing with an extensive assortment of federal offenses had acquired seizure warrants and restraining orders on five vehicles and bank accounts holding $160,000. The HHS-OIG has also filed “*lis pendens” (Latin for “suit pending” see footnote) against four real properties that were acquired with profits derived from the scheme.

The indictment was brought as the result of sweeping arrests by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force which was responsible for the takedown of 24 individuals from the South Florida area in March. 89 Individuals in total were rounded up nationally for the submission of over $45 million in fabricated billings to Medicare.

On August 13, in Miami, the couple each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud before U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro in the Southern District of Florida. Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 30. The pair is each facing a sentence of 10 years in prison as a maximum penalty.

The case was investigated by the FBI as well as the Office of Inspector General’s U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, under the supervision of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. The case was just one of many where indictments were unsealed regarding investigations conducted by the M.F.S.F. The strike force is currently functioning in nine cities across the country. Since its inception it has indicted more than 1,500 defendants that have fraudulently billed Medicare more than $5 billion.

In the words of U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer, “Health care fraud continues to be a drain on scarce Medicare dollars, as unscrupulous individuals insist on using the Medicare Trust Fund as their private ATMs. We are undaunted and remain committed in our resolve to help preserve and protect Medicare for those who need it, the sick, the elderly and the poor.”

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder also commented in reference to the work done by the Strike Force “Today’s announcement marks the latest step forward in our comprehensive efforts to combat fraud and abuse in our health-care systems…” they are “protecting the American people from all forms of health-care fraud, safeguarding taxpayer resources and ensuring the integrity of essential health-care programs.” Mr. Ferrer commended the investigative efforts of the multiple agencies involved as well as the FBI.

*As it now stands, a lis pendens is a printed announcement stating that a lawsuit has been filed in regard to real estate, which involves either the title to the property or a claimed proprietorship concern in it. A lis pendens that is recorded against a complete entity or a section of property signals a potential buyer or financier that the property’s title is presently in question.

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Her boss accepted a guilty plea and was sentenced for his crimes.
Last week, Wondera Eason, 51, of Miami came to the realization that she will suffer the same fate.

Armando Gonzalez the owner of health provider Health Care Solutions Network Inc. (HCSN) was doing so well in Florida that he expanded his operations to a third facility in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

The only problem was that his method of collecting most of his company’s revenues from Medicare and Florida Medicaid programs was performed illegally. He also followed the same practices in his North Carolina facility.

In an April plea agreement, in front of U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga, Gonzalez agreed to accept guilty charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. His sentence for his guilty plea was to serve 14 years in prison. He was also ordered to pay over $28 million in restitution for monies collected through the fraud. The government’s attempt to recover as much money as possible forced Gonzalez to sell his property valued at several million dollars as well as several high-end automobiles that were registered to him. His savings account of slightly less than 1 million dollars was also seized by the feds. Upon completion of his prison term Gonzalez will also have to submit to three years of supervised liberty.

On Monday, Ms. Eason, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in what has been labeled her central role in the more than $63 million of fraudulent claims that were submitted and consequently paid from Medicare and Florida’s Medicaid Department. Upon completion of her prison term, she was also sentenced to serve three years of supervised release. The amount she was ordered to pay in restitution was just less than 15 million. U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga also sentenced Eason.

The sentence was announced on July 8 in collaboration with the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Florida; the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; the FBI’s Miami Field Office; and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), Office of Investigations Miami Office.

Health Care Solutions Network Inc.’s Website was taken down in early May and the company is no longer operating. But when they were, Eason’s title was “director of medical records at HCSN’s PHP” (partial hospitalization program).

A PHP is a type of arduous treatment for persons that suffer from severe mental illness and substance abuse. The patient, in most cases resides at home, but travels to the treatment center as often as daily, during a seven day week. Partial hospitalization concentrates on the total treatment of the individual, and its intent is to avert or lessen the amount of time the patient needs to spend their actual time hospitalized.

Evidence at trial showed that Eason, a certified medical records technician, oversaw the fraudulent billing practices for supposed PHP treatment. Her oversight included the forgery, alteration, and fabrication of a vast amount of documents that supported the fraudulent claims
A statement from the Justice Department cited that the therapy given to the patients at HCSN was basically bogus. It regularly consisted of no more than the patients playing bingo, watching Disney movies, or participating in barbecues.

Eason is not the final collaborator who has been or will be facing penalties attributed to this fraud. Just today, the Department of Justice released a statement naming Roger Rousseau, 71, another Miami resident with two counts of health care fraud and a separate charge of conspiracy to commit health care fraud.

Additionally, six therapists have been charged in the same indictment with the latter charge. Ruben Busquets, 49, Doris Crabtree, 61, Angela Salafia, 65, Alina Fonts, 47, Liliana Marks, 46, and Blanca Ruiz, 59, all Miami residents.

Busquets, Marks, Salafia and Crabtree were all charged with two counts of making false statements related to the scheme, and Fonts was charged with two counts of health care fraud.

Additionally, many other South Floridians are facing charges stemming from similar cases.

In one example, Odalys Fernandez, Yumidia Naranjo, Kelvin Soto, Servando Raya, Jose Guerra, and Yanuris Lima have been charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud. In this particular analogous case the two registered nurses and four recruiters have been charged for supposedly providing services, such as skilled nursing and physical therapy, to homebound beneficiaries. In fact, it is charged, the services were either medically unnecessary or weren’t provided at all. The allegations go on to state that they falsified medical paperwork to make it seem that they had provided theses services. The four recruiters are alleged to have compensated Medicare recipients in the effort that they would attend as patients at Ideal Home Health. Overall, the six health care workers are charged with submitting to Medicare in excess of $40 million in false billing for that company.

The list goes on and on.

In cases such as these, the swindled monetary quantities are staggering. According to a FBI press release, made available last year shows that a total of 59 persons from South Florida alone have been charged in various schemes defrauding Medicare for more than $137 million. The press release also goes on to demonstrate that 107 more individuals in seven other cities were charged involving over $450 million in bogus billing.

To read the latest Department of Justice press release, in regard to the case against Ms. Eason, click here.

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