Florida healthcare executive convicted in $1.3B Medicare, Medicaid fraud scheme
FierceHealthcare | April 09, 2019
The owner of several South Florida skilled nursing and assisted living facilities has been found guilty for his role in a $1.3 billion scheme to defraud Medicare and Medicaid—one of the largest in U.S. history. Philip Esformes, 50, of Miami Beach, was convicted by a jury on 18 counts in the case, and sentencing has not been scheduled, according to an announcement from the Department of Justice. Esformes was found guilty of leading an extensive fraud scheme from between January 1998 and July 2016, according to the DOJ. Esformes bribed physicians to refer patients to his nursing facilities, where they were given medically unnecessary care or inappropriate services that were then billed to Medicare and Medicaid.