Patient Recruiter Cruised Lobbies of Senior Housing

SAN FRANCISCO — An Oakland, Calif., woman was sentenced
April 26 to 57 months in prison for her role in a scam to bill
Medicare for more than $1.2 million in fraudulent claims for power
wheelchairs, HHS and the Department of Justice announced.

Donna K. Wells, 52, was convicted in November 2010 of health
care fraud after a week-long jury trial in the Central District of
California. In addition to her prison term, U.S. District Court
Judge Dale S. Fischer sentenced Wells to three years of supervised
release and ordered her to pay $240,380 in restitution.

According to beneficiaries who testified at her trial, the
lengths to which Wells went in enticing them shows just how far
some scammers will go.

Prosecutors said Wells worked the streets and low-income, senior
living communities of Oakland in her recruiting effort.
Beneficiaries who testified said Wells approached them on the
street, at the store or even waited in the lobbies of their
buildings to offer them free power chairs in exchange for allowing
her to copy their Medicare and California identification cards.
Judge Fischer found that Wells purposely misled beneficiaries into
believing that she worked for Medicare or another government
agency.

Wells then sold the information she got for $400 to $500 per
beneficiary. The individuals who bought the information fabricated
prescriptions and medical documents that in turn were sold to
fraudulent DME companies to submit false claims for power chairs
and other DME, the DOJ said in a press release. One of those
companies was Maydads Medical Supply of Arleta, Calif., which was
owned by Wells’ co-defendant Sylvester ljewere, who was sentenced
in October to a 46-month prison term for Medicare fraud.

In imposing Wells’ sentence, Judge Fischer found that Wells was
responsible for more than $1.2 million in false claims that were
submitted to Medicare for approximately 200 beneficiaries.

The case was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force,
now operating
in nine cities, and supervised by the Criminal Division’s Fraud
Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of
California.