Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
United Press International - October 21, 2008
Dr. Ana Alvarez-Jacinto and Sandra Mateos, a nurse, in 2003 collected $8 million from false Medicare claims at a clinic owned by three brothers who fled to Cuba to avoid prosecution, The Miami Herald reported Monday.
The two women were partners with Carlos, Jose and Luis Benitez, who ran 12 HIV clinics that billed Medicare $119 million in payments from 2001 to 2004, prosecutors allege. The Benitez brothers, also charged with fraud, have been jailed in Cuba on immigration violations, the Herald reported.
HIV-positive patients allegedly received kickbacks of $150 in exchange for giving the clinics their Medicare numbers to bill the program for HIV-infusion treatments made obsolete by antiretroviral drugs taken orally, the newspaper said.
The Benitez brothers, who immigrated in 1995, allegedly used their Medicare gains to buy hotels, homes, horses, a helicopter and a water park, all in the Dominican Republic, where FBI agents are working to seize the assets, the Herald said.
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