February 23, 2021
Antonio Olivera, the acting administrator for Mhiramarc Management LLC, was sentenced to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay $2,193,914 in restitution for his role in a multimillion dollars hospice fraud scheme. Olivera pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud in November 2020.
As part of his guilty plea, Olivera admitted that from 2011 to 2018, while acting as administrator for Mhiramarc Management LLC (Mhiramarc), a hospice located in Downey, California, Olivera and others paid illegal kickbacks to patient recruiters for the referral of hospice beneficiaries to Mhiramarc. Further, when clinical staff at Mhiramarc determined beneficiary referrals did not qualify to receive hospice services, Olivera overruled those determinations and nonetheless caused the beneficiaries to be put on hospice service.
Olivera and co-conspirators caused Mhiramarc to submit approximately $28 million in claims to Medicare, which resulted in the company being paid over $17 million. Olivera was personally responsible for $4,769,982 in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare, resulting in Medicare paying Mhiramarc $2,984,914 for medically unnecessary hospice services for beneficiaries, many of whom had been recruited through illegal kickbacks. Read the full story.
Source: Department of Justice
If you suspect Medicare fraud contact Ohio SMP at 1-800-488-6070 option 7, use the “Report Fraud” button on this App, or click here.