The owner and a senior executive of Vivature, a healthcare billing company, have pleaded guilty to their roles in a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme.
What happened?
- Vivature owner and president Mouzon Bass III, 60, of Highland Park, Texas, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to a Feb. 13 Justice Department news release.
- Vivature senior executive Lance Wilson, 57, of Allen, Texas, pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
- The two were involved in conspiracies to defraud others in connection with COVID-19 testing and an athletic training billing scheme, according to the release.
- The men were indicted in January 2024 for allegedly using the company to submit false claims to private insurance carriers, representing that physicians provided medical services for injured student athletes at universities across the country. The physicians, however, did not see or treat the patients and the services were actually performed by athletic trainers employed by the universities’ athletic departments, who, in most cases, were specifically excluded from insurance companies’ reimbursement policies.
- Separately, Mr. Bass and Mr. Wilson were involved in a scheme to defraud Health Resources and Services Administration funding earmarked for COVID-19 testing provided to uninsured Americans. They allegedly partnered with international resorts hosting Americans abroad, offering to manage the billing and claims process for COVID-19 testing provided to these American travelers. They then allegedly submitted thousands of reimbursement claims to HRSA for such travelers, even though such travelers were privately insured and ineligible under the HRSA program.
- Sentencing dates have not yet been set.
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