10 Years Imprisonment Sentence for Massive Medicare Scam Defendant

A sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment was given by a Miami court to defendant, Jafet Garcia who has been part of a massive scam involving Medicare insurance. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced the decision recently.

Los Angeles, California, May 23, 2007 – Based on the court files of the case involving Garcia, it was between February 2004 and December 2004 when the defendant, along with his accomplices purchased four companies on medical equipments. These are named Sunset Medical Corporation, King Medical Service and Supplies Corporation, Travelango Services Corp. and Clear Choice Home Health, Inc.

These companies are situated in Palm Beach and Miami–Dade Counties. The companies were essential in their modus operandi.

Garcia, along with his accomplices recruited some people to pretend as owners of the companies they bought. Once they have set up the companies, the Garcia and his cohorts got hold of information about physician and patient and used these to prepare fake prescriptions. They also used the information for preparing necessary medical certificates.

These fake medical certificates and prescriptions were supposed to sanction assorted medical equipment provisions to the Medicare beneficiaries they have named. The truth is that the certificates and prescriptions were all just fabricated by the defendant and/or his partners. All of it contained forged signatures of physicians.

Subsequently, the defendant and his accomplices supplied the bogus certificates and prescriptions to a billing company in Miami, which must be submitted to the Medicare.

Thus, the billing company arranged the claims to Medicare and sought reimbursement for the equipment’s cost according to what was listed in the bogus certificates and prescriptions. This, even without proper authorization of a physician or supplied to the named beneficiaries.

After the Medicare processed the deceptive claims and issued the necessary reimbursement checks, the defendant or his accomplices would cash it at a certain Miami store that cash checks. Then, the defendant and his accomplices would present the claims in a certain company for medical equipments. After two or three months, they will close it and start billing again through another of the four companies. This cycle lets them from avoid being caught.

While the scheme progressed, the Garcia and his accomplices put forward $9 million or more in fake Medicare claims.