Miami Jury Convicts Physician and Three Business Owners of Medi...(ies for unnecessaryaerosol prescriptions...),Health

Date:3/7/2008

ies for unnecessary aerosol prescriptions for these patients. In exchange for bringing the prescriptions to the pharmacies, the defendants received approximately $150,000 dollars from the pharmacy owners, who have also been sentenced to federal prison. Between December 1997 and January 2007, the defendants directly billed Medicare more than $1.6 million dollars for medical equipment for these same patients.

Hernandez owned and operated Action Best Medical Supplies Inc., and Jimenez and Rodriguez owned and operated Esmar Medical Equipment Inc., both Miami durable medical equipment companies (DMEs). Rodriguez also owned and operated A & A Medical Services Inc., a home health care agency, and M & M Comprehensive Inc., an assisted living facility. Caos practiced at Larkin Community Hospital and operated a private practice.

The patients testified that they were paid cash kickbacks to accept delivery of the unnecessary medication and medical equipment that was billed to Medicare. One Medicare beneficiary testified that he donated all the medication to a charity while another testified that she threw it in the trash. Former physician, Pedro Cuni, who is serving time in prison for Medicare fraud, testified that he was paid $50 a piece to write prescriptions for the patients controlled by these defendants.

Trial evidence established that Caos wrote prescriptions for unnecessary compounded aerosol medication and its related medical equipment. The jury also heard testimony from Orlando Pascual, another company owner who is serving time for Medicare fraud, that he purchased prescriptions from Caos at $100 per prescription. These aerosol prescriptions were taken to the fraudulent pharmacies, which were shut down in June 2003 following raids by the FBI and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Inspector General (HHS-OIG).

In 2006, the Medicare program paid for more than $155 million worth of aerosol medications in Miami-Da
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SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice Copyright©2008 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

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