Justice Department Files Civil Forfeiture Actions in Health Care Fraud Scheme

MIAMI—The United States has filed civil forfeiture complaints in the Southern District of Florida against two purported durable medical equipment (DME) companies accused of fraudulently billing Medicare more than $33 million combined.

According to allegations in the complaints, Vida Med Center LLC and Med-Union Medical Center, Inc., both enrolled Medicare providers, submitted false and fraudulent claims for DME that were medically unnecessary and not provided as represented.

Vida Med allegedly submitted $14,110,820.00 in claims to Medicare and received $8,759,036.68 in reimbursements. Med-Union submitted $19,044,516.07 in Medicare claims and received $14,167,792.92 in payments. Notably, all of Med-Union’s paid Medicare claims were based on prescriptions issued by a single provider. The civil forfeiture actions seek to recover $967,760.37 and $10,014,325.40 respectively.

FBI Miami and Health and Department of Human Services-Office of Inspector General are investigating the cases.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Marx P. Calderón and Joshua Paster for the Southern District of Florida are prosecuting these civil actions.