The Department of Justice has charged 455 people accused of medical fraud schemes worth a combined $6.5 billion
- Bookmark
A Las Vegas nurse practitioner charged in a massive healthcare fraud scheme used the funds to purchase a $594,000 Ferrari and a $865,000 necklace, according to prosecutors.
Marizel Yukee was charged in connection with an alleged $906 million scheme to defraud Medicare and TRICARE. Prosecutors announced the charges as part of a sweeping crackdown on alleged healthcare fraud across the country involving more than 450 defendants.
Yukee, 49, is accused of targeting elderly Medicare patients using four mobile wound clinics she owned in four different states. Many of those targeted were terminally ill and in hospice care, the indictment claims.
Assets valued at approximately $35.2 million were seized as part of the investigation, including a Ferrari 296 GTS and seven other vehicles as well as jewelry, the U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of Texas said in a statement.
Dr Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, shared a picture of Yukee on X claiming she lived a “lavish lifestyle” while spending taxpayer money.
“Her actions were a systematic plunder of our healthcare safety net at the expense of our most vulnerable citizens,” he claimed.
Yukee’s attorney Justo A. Méndez told The Wall Street Journal his client is “presumed innocent unless and until the government proves otherwise.”
In the indictment filed June 18, prosecutors allege Yukee bought a “million-dollar home” in Hawaii through the fraud scheme and helped to fund a $4.6 million beach resort in the Philippines.
The scheme allegedly involved her billing Medicare and TRICARE for medically unnecessary amniotic wound allografts that were procured through illegal kickbacks and bribes.
The scheme resulted in unnecessary and expensive allografts being applied to patients’ wounds without attempting, completing or conforming conservative wound care treatment, prosecutors said.
Allografts were said to have been applied to infected wounds, to wounds that had already healed and to wounds that were not responding to the allografts.
Yukee is further accused of falsifying patient medical records to make it appear as though the application of the allografts was medically reasonable, necessary and met Medicare requirements.
The nurse practitioner has been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and healthcare fraud, healthcare fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, offering, paying, soliciting and receiving illegal healthcare kickbacks and transactional money laundering.
The wider healthcare fraud crackdown has resulted in charges against 455 defendants, including 90 doctors and other licensed medical professionals, prosecutors said.
Those charged allegedly took part in schemes involving healthcare fraud and opioid abuse involving $6.5 billion in false claims and significant patient harm, including death.
*The Independent *has contacted Yukee’s attorney for comment.