All three men pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and admitted to participating in a conspiracy to defraud Medicare, operating out a Southfield, Mich., clinic called Sacred Hope Center.
Mr. Hicks admitted that in Sept. 2006, he began working as a patient recruiter and driver at Sacred Hope, which purported to specialize in providing injection and infusion therapy services to Medicare patients. However, according to court documents, Sacred Hope routinely billed the Medicare program for medications and services that were medically unnecessary and, in many instances, never provided. Mr. Hicks admitted to being aware that the purpose of the clinic was to defraud the Medicare program, not to provide legitimate healthcare to patients.
According to court documents, Medicare beneficiaries were not referred to Sacred Hope by their primary care physicians or for any other legitimate medical purpose, but were recruited to come to the clinic through the payment of kickbacks. Mr. Hicks, along with co-conspirator Wayne Smith, who pleaded guilty on Dec. 10, 2009, was responsible for driving into Detroit neighborhoods and recruiting Medicare beneficiaries by offering them cash and prescriptions for controlled substances. In exchange for their kickbacks, the Medicare beneficiaries would visit the clinic, typically driven there by Mr. Hicks or Mr. Smith, and sign documents indicating that they had received the services billed to Medicare. Mr. Hicks and Mr. Smith would obtain cash on a daily basis from the clinic’s owners, Jose Rosario and Daisy Martinez, for the purpose of paying the beneficiaries cash kickbacks. Mr. Rosario and Ms. Martinez pleaded guilty for their roles in Aug. 2009 and Sept. 2009, respectively.
Mr. Al Mahdi and Mr. Saunders admitted in their pleas that they were Medicare beneficiaries who permitted their Medicare numbers to be used for fraudulent billings at Sacred Hope. Specifically, they admitted being driven by Mr. Hicks and Mr. Smith to Sacred Hope, and signing forms indicating that they had received injection and/or infusion therapy. In return for signing these forms, they were paid cash kickbacks of approximately $50 per visit.
Both defendants admitted that when visiting Sacred Hope, they were repeatedly injected with unknown substances, the purposes of which were never explained to them. Both Mr. Al Mahdi and Mr. Saunders admitted that they did not visit Sacred Hope for the purpose of receiving legitimate medical care. Rather, they visited Sacred Hope for the sole purpose of receiving kickbacks and knowingly allowed Medicare to be billed for the services supposedly provided to them there.
Read the DOJ’s release on the Detroit Medicare infusion fraud scheme.
