Florida is a wonderful state. The team, here at Allegiant Experts, makes it no secret that it’s made up of many proud Floridians. How could we not be proud? When you’re greeted with generous helpings of warmth and sunshine year round and pass by palm trees on your way to work each day, it’s hard not to see Florida as a paradise, of sorts. Of course, we know the reality. Our beloved Sunshine State isn’t perfect. A recent story emanating from Miami reminds us of that.
Last week, the United States Department of Justice reported the sentencing of a mother and daughter team of fraudsters who, as part of their scheme, paid illegal health care kickbacks to patient recruiters and medical professionals. 61 year-old Mildrey Gonzalez and her 39 year-old daughter, Milka Alfaro were both sentenced to over 10 years in prison each for their roles in a $20 million Medicare fraud conspiracy.
The mother and daughter team admitted to co-owning and operating no less than seven home health agencies in the Miami area. As part of their plot to bilk millions of dollars from Medicare, the pair failed to disclose that they owned any of the seven agencies to the health insurance provider. Disclosing ownership is required by Medicare’s rules and regulations. Furthermore, Gonzalez and Alfaro admitted to paying illegal kickbacks to those who helped them to bring Medicare beneficiaries into their scheme.
The mother and daughter duo paid bribes and kickbacks to medical professionals who provided them with home health referrals. They also directed co-conspirators to open shell corporations that enabled them to funnel millions of dollars collected from their defrauding of Medicare. As if this wasn’t enough, Gonzalez and Alfaro also perjured themselves at a previous hearing, attempted to influence testimony of potential trial witnesses and submitted false affidavits regarding their assets to the court.
In total, Mildrey Gonzalez will serve 135 months in prison. She pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and one count of health care fraud. Her daughter, Milka Alfaro will serve 151 months. She pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud. The two will also have to pay about $22,900,000 in restitution.
Clearly, health care fraud isn’t exclusive to the state of Florida. As the Allegiant Experts Blog has highlighted for quite some time, every state in our nation has fraudsters of its own. For obvious reasons, we take a special interest in the stories about health care fraud that come out of our home state. It’s always disappointing to hear about those who give our state a bad name.
We’d like to think that our clinical experts are part of what makes Florida great. We’re committed to helping our state’s attorneys in their cases that involve both health care fraud and medical misconduct. As the name of our organization implies, we are experts in our field, having provided expert clinical services for over a decade and a half.
We’re confident that we can help your team! For more information about how we may be able to assist you in your case, please don’t hesitate to call us at 407-217-5831 or email us at info@allegiantexperts.com.