Industry Note:
Miami Fraud Ring Bust Nets 12 More Guilty Pleas
Published on Tue Sep 27, 2011
The guilty pleas keep rolling in in the massive fraud case revolving around Miami home health agencies Florida Home Health Care Providers and ABC Home Health. The government has implicated 54 doctors, nurses, HHA staffers and patient recruiters in the scheme that allegedly bilked Medicare of $15 million for medically necessary and often unprovided diabetic and therapy services, notes the Miami Herald. The Department of Justice has announced 12 more guilty pleas from an administrator, nurses, and patient recruiters. The patient recruiters solicited kickbacks and bribes from the HHA owners andoperators in return for allowing the agencies to bill for medically unnecessary services for the recruited patients, the DOJ says in two releases. Since 2009, the Justice Department has convicted nearly all of the 54 defendants in the case, including Gladys Zambrana and her son, Javier Zambrana, who owned and operated the two agencies, the Herald notes. The one exception [...]