Home Health & Hospice Week

A serious criminal enterprise running on-paper-only home health agencies has resulted in a number of guilty pleas and lengthy prison terms.

Eight co-defendants operated “a fraud and money laundering organization responsible for executing a series of frauds in Florida and Michigan through which they billed Medicare for over $80 million, actually receiving approximately $53 million for fraudulent claims,” the Department of Justice says in a release. “The organization recruited and directed nominee owners to fraudulently purchase home health agencies, as well as to open sham corporations in their names, along with corresponding personal and corporate bank accounts.”

How it worked: “After the acquisition of the home health agency was completed, the group began fraudulently billing Medicare for services that were never provided. The home health agencies had no medical staff and provided no services to any beneficiaries,” the DOJ explains. “The group, upon receiving the Medicare money, would funnel that through several layers of shell companies and bank accounts in an effort to launder the money before converting it to cash at ATMs and check cashing stores in Miami. Once the nominee owners completed their work, the group required them to permanently move to Cuba to avoid detection and live beyond the jurisdiction of the United States.”

Florida residents Alberto Orian Gonzalez-Delgado, Eduardo Rubal, Vicente Gonzalez Acosta, Alexander Fernandez, Yaxing Tapanes, Jose Carlos Valladares Rivera, Hector Suarez Gonzalez, and Antonio Jimenez pleaded guilty to the scam and received prison sentences ranging from four years to 17.5 years, Justice says.