When an ambulance comes up behind you with lights flashing and horn blaring, you pull over to let it pass. That’s because you know that a few moments can make a life or death difference to anyone inside. If only the owner of a Texas ambulance company, featured in a January report by The Brownsville Herald, cared as much about ‘right of way’. Instead, he was caught funneling fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid claims through his business. (Let’s call that ‘wrong of way.’)
The 28-year-old fraudtrepreneur filed and incited others to file more than 620 phony Medicare and Texas Medicaid claims between 2010 and 2013, collectively worth more than $1 million. His part of the take amounted to $450,000. (EMS = Easy Money Scheme?)Many of the claims requested reimbursement for non-existent ambulance services and some fraudulently used a patient’s Texas Medicaid number, constituting identity theft. (Cue a different kind of siren.)This particular fraud collision, committed at both the state and federal level, carries a maximum prison sentence of ten years.
After he was caught, the man pleaded guilty to health care fraud and aggravated identity theft. He subsequently was sentenced to 54 months—about four and a half years—in federal prison, plus three years of probation, and ordered to pay more than $450,000 in restitution. (EMS = Ensure Much Suffering?)
When it comes to emergency medical services, the bond between the patient and care providers is one of those sacred trusts. Those who might consider breaking that trust to enrich themselves should be aware that investigators of fraud are not going to let you pass.
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