A patient recruiter for a Houston-based home healthcare company has pled guilty in connection with a $5.2 million Medicare fraud scheme, according to the departments of Justice and Health and Human Services.
Sammie Wilson, 69, pled guilty before U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Atlas in Houston to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud.
According to court documents, Family Healthcare Group supposedly provided skilled nursing to Medicare beneficiaries. The owner hired Wilson and others to recruit Medicare beneficiaries to file false claims with Medicare. Wilson was paid kickbacks for referring beneficiaries for services that she knew were not medically necessary or not rendered.
Officials say Wilson was also one of the patients who provided information to falsely bill Medicare. At sentencing, scheduled for July 18, 2011, she faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Since inception in March 2007, Medicare Fraud Strike Force operations in seven districts have obtained indictments of more than 825 individuals who collectively have falsely billed the Medicare program for more than $2 billion.