Joseph Rugg's Health Law Blog

Eight individuals and a Miami-based corporation were convicted by a federal jury for their participation in a Medicare fraud scheme involving the submission of more than $50 million in fraudulent billings to Medicare, the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced today.

Antonio Macli, the owner of Biscayne Milieu Health Center Inc., a mental health care corporation, his son Jorge Macli, Biscayne Milieu’s CEO, and Antonio Macli’s daughter Sandra Huarte, an executive at the company, were each found guilty in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, and one or more substantive counts of health care fraud, conspiracy to commit a health care kickback scheme and conspiracy to commit money laundering and substantive counts of money laundering. Antonio Macli and Jorge Macli were also convicted of substantive kickback counts. Dr. Gary Kushner, the medical director at Biscayne Milieu, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and a substantive count of health care fraud. Rafael Alalu, a therapist, and Jacqueline Moran, who handled Medicare billing for Biscayne Milieu, were each found guilty of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and substantive counts of health care fraud. Anthony Roberts and Derek Alexander, two patient recruiters, were each found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit a health care kickback scheme, and each was convicted of one health care kickback count.

The defendants were charged in a superseding indictment returned June 5, 2012. Twenty other individuals who worked at Biscayne Milieu have all previously pleaded guilty.

See on www.justice.gov

For an aggregation of other articles on Hot Topics in Healthcare Law, go to my magazine on Scoop.it – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law and Regulation and my newspaper on Paper.li – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law.

For an aggregation of other articles on improving healthcare, go to my internet magazine Scoop.it! Changing Health for the Better.