Lil Vargas-Arias, Medicare Fraud, Michigan 2010

State: Federal
Category: Fraud &#038; Financial Crimes
Source: <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/detroit-clinic-manager-pleads-guilty-medicare-fraud-scheme" style="color:#cc0000;" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">DOJ Press Release ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Â Ã¢â‚¬â€

Lil Vargas-Arias, a 46-year-old resident of Denver, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud in U.S. District Court in Detroit in a Medicare Fraud Scheme.

According to the court records, Vargas-Arias was hired by the owners of Sacred Hope Medical Center Inc. (Sacred Hope), a Southfield, Mich., facility that purported to specialize in providing injection and infusion therapy services to Medicare patients.

The scheme involved billing the Medicare program for services that were medically unnecessary or were never provided. Vargas-Arias admitted to helping to obtain a lease for the premises used by the clinic, and to hiring a co-conspirator physician, purportedly to treat patients at the clinic.

During the time Sacred Hope was open, the clinic routinely billed the Medicare program for services that were medically unnecessary or were never provided. Vargas-Arias admitted she was aware that the clinic had purchased only a small fraction of the medications that the clinic billed the Medicare program for providing.

Vargas-Arias faces a statutory maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine at her sentencing, which is scheduled for Feb. 11, 2010. In exchange for her guilty plea, Medicare paid approximately $4,931,428 on false and fraudulent claims submitted by Sacred Hope and Xpress Center Inc. (XPC), another purported infusion clinic where Vargas-Arias was involved.

The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys John K. Neal and Benjamin D. Singer of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas W. Beimers of the Eastern District of Michigan. The FBI and the HHS Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) conducted the investigation.

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