Home Health & Hospice Week

Five South Floridians have pled guilty to their parts in a home health agency scheme, the OIG and Department of Justice say in a release. Arturo Fonseca, Isis Torres, Francisco Portillo, Eduardo Romero, and William Madrigal were originally indicted on health care fraud charges in December. Fonseca, owner of medical clinic Courtesy Medical Group, admitted to providing documentation to two Miami HHAs, ABC Home Health Care Inc. and Florida Home Health Care Providers Inc., for billing of medically unnecessary services that sometimes weren't even furnished. The agencies billed Medicare $16.6 million for the bogus services.

Romero was a patient recruiter who "would solicit and receive kickbacks and bribes from the owners of ABC and Florida Home Health in return for providing Medicare beneficiaries that the home health agencies could use to bill the Medicare program for unnecessary home health care services," the DOJ says. Romero also paid bribes to Courtesy for the documentation.

Torres and Portillo were nurses who falsified records for the agencies and Madrigal is a beneficiary who took bribes from ABC and Florida Home Health in exchange for using his number for fraudulent billing, according to the guilty pleas.

The owners of ABC and Florida Home Health have pled guilty as well and are awaiting sentencing, the DOJ says.