US court convicts Filipino nurse for health care fraud

A registered nurse from the Philippines was sentenced on Monday to 57 months in jail in Los Angeles, California for defrauding the US government of over $3 million in health care money. US District Judge Dale Fischer also convicted Haydee Parungao for the structuring of cash transactions to avoid Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reporting requirements involving $613,710, the US-based Balita News Service reported. The judge ordered Parungao to pay back Medicare the amount of $3,099,835.89, representing the amount of fraudulent claims she filed with the health care system, and to spend three years on a supervised released after serving her prison sentence. Parungao entered a plea bargain agreement in which she agreed to forfeit her four luxury cars—two Mercedes Benz automobiles, a 2002 Mercedes Benz ML 55 AMG and a 2003 Mercedes Benz SL 500—to the government. She admitted that the vehicles were bought with proceeds from her illegal activities. Judge Fischer ordered Parungao to begin serving her sentence on May 25. Another Filipino nurse found guilty In October 2006, another US district judge found Lourdes Perez, also a Filipino registered nurse in California, guilty of defrauding Medicare of $40 million in fraudulent health care claims and for filing false tax returns that concealed her ill-gotten gains. Judge Stephen V. Wilson sentenced Perez to 46 months in federal prison for orchestrating a scheme in which her companies obtained patients by paying illegal kickbacks to marketers, doctors and patients then billed Medicare for services that were not medically necessary and, in some cases, not performed at all, and made false medical records to support the fraudulent claims and avoid detection by Medicare contractors. Parungao and Perez fell into the hands of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after an inter-agency investigation that involved the IRA-Criminal Investigation, and FBI’s Health Care Fraud Unit in LA. Apart from the prison term, Perez was also ordered to pay $6,127,374 to Medicare representing the fraudulent health care claims she managed to collect between October 2002 and September 2003, and an additional $874,336 to the IRA representing the amount of taxes she avoided to pay. Perez pleaded guilty to health care fraud and tax charges and agreed to cooperate with government in the investigation of others involved in similar modus operandi. Balita news service reported that Perez had already paid $34 million and has been giving information on others involved in similar transactions. Complex web of fraud Balita News Service said both Parungao and Perez were part of a complex interlocking web of fraud involving several home health businesses and hundreds of unwitting seniors across Southern California. Parungao was engaged in a business that purportedly provides in-home nursing services to Medicare patients. From 2001 through 2004, she worked as an independent contractor for several home health agencies, including Provident Home Health Care Services Inc., Tri-Regional Home Health Services Inc., Datacare Home Health Service Inc., and Double Diamond Home Health Services. Together with others working for the home health agencies, Parungao engaged in a scheme to defraud the government in three ways. One, they billed Medicare for patients who were neither homebound nor eligible for Medicare home health services. Second, they billed Medicare for services that were not rendered, and three, they created false medical records to support the fraudulent claims submitted to Medicare, Balita News Service reported. Perez owned two of the home health agencies involved in the fraud—Provident, in Eagle Rock and Tri-Regional, in San Dimas. They were once two of the largest such businesses in California. A prosecutor in the case said the fraud worked because it pitted a vulnerable sector, senior citizens, against enterprising home health providers like Parungao and Perez, who aggressively peddled their scheme in the places their victims congregate: seniors centers, home health agencies, even outside supermarkets. They offer something the seniors think they could use, from electric wheelchairs to health beverages and home health services. In exchange for signing off on a form, the unwitting seniors get something: cash, a gift car, cookware, etc. Assistant US Attorney Consuelo Woodhead has cautioned senior citizens to be wary of anyone offering them money or gifts in exchange for signing off on services they don’t need or think is wrong. “They are getting themselves mixed in defrauding the government, in taking money that should be going to services that could benefit them," she said. Instead, if someone approaches them offering home health service, they should first talk to a doctor, Woodhead said, noting that many of the victims of the Medicare fraud case have regular physicians, Balita News Service reported. - GMANews.TV