Thursday, November 15, 2012

FL ALF Owner Sentenced for Medicare Fraud

The owner of a Miami-Dade County assisted living facility (ALF) was sentenced today to 15 months in prison for her role in a kickback scheme that funneled ALF patients to fraudulent mental health providers American Therapeutic Corporation (ATC) and Health Care Solutions Network (HCSN), announced U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida; Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; Michael B. Steinbach, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Miami Field Office; and Special Agent in Charge Christopher B. Dennis of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), Office of Investigations Miami Office.

Alba Serrano, 66, of Miami, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Patricia A. Seitz in the Southern District of Florida. In addition to her prison term, Serrano was sentenced to serve three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $258,329 in restitution.

On June 6, 2012, Serrano pleaded guilty in Miami to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud.

According to court documents, Serrano was the owner of Elsa’s House, an ALF that she operated for more than two decades in South Miami. Serrano pleaded guilty to sending Medicare beneficiaries who resided at Elsa’s House to both ATC and HCSN for partial hospitalization program (PHP) services, a form of intensive treatment for severe mental illness, in exchange for illegal health care kickbacks. In her plea agreement, Serrano admitted that she referred beneficiaries to both ATC and HCSN in exchange for cash kickbacks, even though she knew that some of the beneficiaries did not suffer from severe mental illness and accepting health care kickbacks was illegal.

According to the plea agreement, Serrano’s participation in the fraud resulted in at least $591,385 in fraudulent billing to the Medicare program.

Full Article and Source:
Miami Assisted Living Facility Owner Sentenced for Medicare Fraud

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

They should check out ALFs in Clearwater, Florida! These ALF's and the doctors that work them are getting kick backs in more ways than one will ever know. They brought in Hospice for my mother Retta Rickow, and told her family she was going to die on her birthday over two years ago, she was so healthy then, did not die, and hospice never spoke to her family. The doctor at the facility, Julia Cosmo is still my mother's doctor. If someone told you, you were going to die and brought in alot of services would you still use the same Doctor, I think not! They also send residents to Morton Plant Hospital all the time for test after falls. One lady went 3 times over a week end for full body and brain scans. She fell outside, fell in her room and fell in bathroom, her sister said she could not believe the bill form medicare. Neither could I! The lady had a little bruise. Scamming our system and ruining our country. They need to be caught and punished!

Thelma said...

Supervised release? So she can set up another scheme somewhere else?

Betty said...

I'm glad to see this. I hope more ALF's are held accountable.