Three Miami residents have pled guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud in connection with a $5.8 million Medicare fraud scheme.
Maria Volero Marrero admitted that she owned and operated Tendercare Medical Center Inc., a supposed HIV/AIDS infusion clinic. According to investigators, she conspired with Lawrence Edward Humes, Keith Earnest Humes and other patient recruiters to defraud Medicare by submitting claims for services that were medically unnecessary and usually not provided.
Marrero paid kickbacks to the patient recruiters to induce Medicare beneficiaries to provide their Medicare numbers and signatures, investigators said.
According to court documents, between January 2005 and December 2007, Tendercare submitted approximately $5.8 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for medically unnecessary injection and infusion treatments. Medicare paid Tendercare approximately $2.7 million.
The case was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, supervised by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida and the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section. Since its inception in March 2007, Strike Force operations in seven districts have obtained indictments of more than 550 individuals who collectively have falsely billed the Medicare program for more than $1.1 billion.