Posted on 04/15/2008 5:17:00 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
McALLEN - A federal jury on Monday convicted former Hidalgo County commissioner Guadalupe Garces and his wife Araceli of using their ambulance company to defraud Medicare and Medicaid of millions of dollars.
The Garceses were found guilty in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and several counts of health care fraud while operating A-Stat Ambulance Inc. The couple submitted more than $14 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare and Medicaid from 2001-2006, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.
The ambulance company would pick up dialysis patients who were able to walk or sit in a wheelchair and take them to treatment, knowing that transporting them was not necessary and would not merit reimbursement from Medicare of Medicaid.
Medicare covers scheduled, non-emergency ambulance services only if patients are bed-ridden or cannot sit in a chair or wheelchair or if their medical conditions require them to be taken to treatment via ambulance.
But in A-Stat's case, it would bill Medicare and Medicaid for reimbursement, using falsified run sheets that stated the patients met transportation criteria.
The couple also incorporated another ambulance company, A Care E.M.S., in 2004 under their 20-year-old son's name and had him apply for Medicare and Medicaid provider numbers after Medicare suspended all payments to A-Stat Ambulance.
The former operations director for that company, Rodney Lee Ramos, pleaded guilty to fraud charges last year and awaits sentencing.
Guadalupe Garces was a Hidalgo County commissioner representing Precinct 4 from 1995-1999 and an Edinburg-area justice of the peace before his election to the commission.
He and his wife are each out on $100,000 bond while they await sentencing. A hearing has been scheduled for 9:30 a.m. July 18 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
They face a maximum punishment of up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 fine plus restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
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Jennifer L. Berghom covers education and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4462.
Of course.
Out on bond? Stupid. They’re going to skip town.
Democrats
Dumb ...........
Yeah....let's let the government run healthcare....all of it....
Take every single dime of their wealth and throw the key away.
I’d be surprised if they didn’t disappear into Mexico from whence they or their parents came. God knows, they have an abundance of relatives who will gladly take them in if they have several million dollars of graft to retire on. Of course, they would have to pay the Mexican officials their share, but that’s the cost of doing business.
Government run healthcare? I don’t think so...
Miami Woman Sentenced to 10-years for Role in $170M Healthcare Fraud Consiracy
On April 2, the same day that seven co-defendants were indicted for their roles in an $11 million Medicare fraud scheme involving HIV infusion clinics, Rita Campos Ramirez who had pleaded guilty in August 2007 to a $170 million conspiracy to commit health care fraud was sentenced to 10 years in prison. According to the U.S. Department of Justice and local federal prosecutors, the scheme represents the largest known individual case of Medicare fraud in the history of the program.
Valle ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
I guess you don’t have to be a Clinton to have $100M-plus. Wonder if she has an offshore account.
Absolutely no surprise there.
Guadalupe and Araceli Garces; Rita Campos Ramirez. Hmmmmmm.
But... but... they did it for the chirren!
No, the thousands of other corrupt Mexicans are what give South Texas that air of corruption.
But...can I still like horses? And more importantly, can I still lust after Viggo Mortensen in my heart? LOL! ;)
Man, I’m on the fence on this one.
They violated the law.
But, at least they weren’t charging for ambulance trips that didn’t exist.
The result was that some diabetics got a ride in an ambulance to the hospital.
I think that there are much worse abuse of funds going on in other places.
Maybe the gov’t should allow Ambulances to ferry diabetics for required healthcare. Maybe the law should change.
BOTTOM LINE: Unless I misread it, they weren’t profiting from it.
Don't I know it. I recently was sent down here to NAS Kingsville. Corpus Christi is a hell-hole. Corruption like I have never seen. Boston is bush leagues compared to this place. Texas and the rest of the Southwest is soon to follow.
We had a local woman die because our only ambulance was being used to take a woman with labor pains to the hospital.
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