FBI Investigating $130 Million Healthcare Scam at Miami Senior Home
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Founded in 1950, Plaza Health Network has earned a reputation as a superb senior citizen home. However, a lawsuit filed by Steven Beaujon, Plaza Health's CFO from 2002- 2012, claims that the non-profit company has scammed the government for $130 million. Beaujon can collect a decent reward, if his charges against Plaza Health are true.
Beaujon alleges that Plaza Health's board of directors, past chairman (Russell Galbut) and CEO (William Zubkoff) devised a plan to give bribes to as many as 55 physicians who referred Medicaid and Medicare patients to Plaza Health's 8 nursing and rehabilitation centers in southern Florida. Subsequently, Plaza Health supposedly submitted false claims to Medicaid and Medicare for therapy services that were either charged at a higher cost or never provided at all. Beaujon also claims that Zubkoff and the board inflated the value of Plaza's real estate assets in order to get low-interest rate loans from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Beajon says that Plaza paid $2 million to 11 physicians that made referrals between 2008 and 2011. Furthermore, these referred patients were placed in a physical therapy program run by Herman Epstein, an employee with a nonexistent medical background. Accordingly, Epstein would inflate the number of hours that Medicaid and Medicare patients "received" physical therapy, billing the government programs for $130 million in fake physical therapy services.
In February or March of 2013, the FBI raided Plaza Health's corporate office and 2 of its nursing homes. On September 13, 2013, Plaza Health announced to the Florida Department of Health that it was shutting down one of its nursing homes and laying off 159 employees. In August of 2014, the company received valuation reports on all of its nursing homes via Marcus & Millichap consulting firm.
Lowy asserts that Plaza Health is no longer in trouble with the government and that the nursing homes are not for sale.
Summary by MedicalGroups.com
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