Home Health & Hospice Week

Two home health fraudsters have received lengthy prison sentences following guilty pleas.

Last December, Alexander Ros Lazo, owner and operator of T.L.C. Health Services Inc., admitted to paying kickbacks and bribes in exchange for referrals and “prescriptions” for home care. Lazo also arranged for licensed massage therapist Misleidy Ibarra “to render therapy services on behalf of licensed therapists despite the fact that they knew she was not licensed to render the physical and occupational therapy services to the Medicare beneficiaries and billed Medicare for those services,” a Department of Justice release said.

Ibarra admitted to conspiring with Ros Lazo to commit fraud by rendering home health therapy services to Medicare beneficiaries when Ibarra was not licensed to provide these services, the DOJ says in a new release

Now a federal judge has sentenced Lazo to more than seven years in prison and $8.6 million in restitution, the DOJ says. The judge sentenced Ibarra to two years in prison and restitution to be determined later.