We have mentioned in the past how health care fraud investigations can result in more than one person being charged for an alleged crime. Sometimes, investigations of health care fraud schemes can grow quite large, leading to many arrests and charges.
For instance, there is a recent case in Florida where several people have been charged for crimes connected to an alleged Medicare fraud scheme. Last week, one of these individuals was sentenced to serve jail time for his alleged involvement in the scheme.
This most recent sentencing involves the owner of a Florida medical clinic. He supposedly accepted bribes from two home health agencies. In exchange for these bribes, the man would allegedly direct diabetes patients of the clinic to receive nursing and home care services from these agencies.
These agencies then allegedly defrauded Medicare in the course of dealing with these patients by billing for unnecessary or unperformed services. Authorities claim that the total amount of these allegedly fraudulent billings is several million dollars.
The man was charged for crimes in connection to this Medicare fraud scheme, and he pled guilty to these charges. Last Friday, he was sentenced to serve five years in prison. He also was ordered to pay a large fine because of his involvement in the fraud scheme.
This man is not the only person authorities have pursued in regards to this alleged fraud case. Several other individuals have also been sentenced in relation to this case. This includes another clinic owner, several nurses and a doctor.
This case demonstrates the wide scale that fraud investigations can sometimes take. The investigation of this scheme has already resulted in many people being charged of crimes and several being sentenced to serve time in jail. This could indicate that authorities continue to be aggressive in pursuing fraud crimes.
Source: Miami Herald, “Former Miami-Dade clinic owner gets 5 years for Medicare fraud,” Jay Weaver, 20 Dec 2010
