Fugitive
Felix Gonzalez
Fugitive Status | sentenced |
---|---|
Charges | Conspiracy to commit Health care fraud |
Amount of Arrears | $21,000,000 |
Investigation Details
On April 16, 2015 in the Southern District of Florida, Felix Gonzalez was sentenced to 113 months imprisonment and ordered to pay $21 million in restitution, joint and several. Gonzalez was a fugitive who returned to the United States in September 2014 and was arrested at Miami airport. He pleaded guilty on January 9, 2015, for conspiracy to commit health care fraud.
Investigators believe that Gonzalez and his co-conspirators caused the submission of approximately $32 million in false claims to Medicare. Gonzalez was indicted in May 2013 on charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and pay health care kickbacks, and payment of kickbacks in connection with a Federal health care benefit program.
Gonzalez owned and operated AA Advanced Care, Inc., a company based in Miami, Florida, which purportedly provided home health care and physical therapy services to eligible Medicare beneficiaries.
According to the indictment, Gonzalez and his co-conspirators allegedly paid thousands of dollars in kickbacks to patient recruiters in exchange for recruiting Medicare beneficiaries to AA Advanced. Gonzalez and his co-conspirators then sent beneficiaries to doctors to obtain prescriptions for home health services that were not medically necessary and were not provided. Gonzalez and his co-conspirators caused patient documentation to be falsified to make it appear as if the beneficiaries qualified for and received home health services when, in fact, they did not.
Between approximately January 2006 and March 2009, AA Advanced submitted claims to Medicare for home health services purportedly provided to around 900 beneficiaries, to which Medicare paid $22 million in reimbursement.
- Health Care Fraud