Olusola Elliott, Medicare Fraud, Texas 2013

Convicted: Olusola Elliott, Medicare Fraud Scheme

A Houston-area ambulance service owner and operator has been convicted of multiple counts of healthcare fraud for submitting false and fraudulent claims to Medicare, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas.

Olusola Elliott, 44, of Fort Bend County, Texas, was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and six counts of healthcare fraud by a federal jury in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Texas on May 30, 2013.

Elliott, who operated Double Daniels LLC, a Texas entity that purportedly provided non-emergency ambulance services to Medicare beneficiaries in the Houston area, conspired with others to unlawfully enrich themselves by submitting false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for ambulance services that were medically unnecessary and not provided.

Evidence presented at trial showed that Elliott falsified patient records in order to fraudulently bill Medicare on behalf of beneficiaries who were not in need of ambulance services.

During the course of the scheme, Elliott submitted and caused the submission of approximately $1,713,716 in fraudulent ambulance service claims to Medicare.

Elliott is scheduled for sentencing on May 31, 2013, in Houston and faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of the six health care fraud counts and the conspiracy count.

The case was investigated by the FBI, HHS-OIG, and the Texas Attorney General Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Christopher Cestaro and Laura M.K. Cordova of the Criminal Division's Fraud Section.

The case is part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, a program that has charged over 1,480 defendants who have collectively billed the Medicare program for more than $4.8 billion since its inception in March 2007.

To learn more about the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT), visit www.stopmedicarefraud.gov.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/owner-and-operator-houston-area-ambulance-service-convicted-medicare-fraud-scheme