McALLEN, Texas ‐ A former account representative for a
toxicology testing company has been ordered to prison in connection with a
scheme to defraud Medicare, announced U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Patrick.
Ivar Cantu, 47, of Palmview, pleaded guilty Dec. 19, 2017,
to conspiring to commit health care fraud.
Today, U.S. District Judge Alvarez imposed a 56-month
sentence for Cantu, to be immediately followed by three years of supervised
release.
Cantu fraudulently set up an account between a medical
clinic where a co-conspirator was employed as a laboratory technician and the
toxicology testing company for whom Cantu was an account representative. During
the latter half of 2015, Cantu and his co-conspirators misappropriated patient
identities and urine specimens from the medical clinic. They then sent them to
the toxicology testing company without consent of the patient or doctor in
order to receive commissions and collection fees from the testing company. In
order to carry out the scheme, Cantu and his co-conspirators forged patient
signatures, falsified medical records and created fictitious documents.
As a result of the scheme, Medicare was billed $836,788
between May 2015 and December 2015.
Cantu was permitted to remain on bond and voluntarily
surrender to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near
future.
The FBI, Department of Health and Human Services‐Office of
Inspector General and Texas Health and Human Services Commission conducted the
investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Swartz is prosecuting the case.
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