Joshua Maywalt (42, Tampa) was sentenced to five years and five months in federal prison for healthcare fraud, aggravated identity theft, filing a false income tax return, and failing to file an income tax return. As part of his sentence, the court also entered an order forfeiting $2,257,029.86 and real estate property in Tampa, which are traceable to proceeds of the offense. According to court documents, Maywalt worked as a medical biller at a company in Clearwater that provided credentialing and medical billing services for its medical provider clients. In this capacity, Maywalt had access to the company’s financial, medical provider, and patient information.
Maywalt was assigned to a Tampa Bay area physician’s account (“Physician #1”) and was responsible for submitting claims to Florida Medicaid Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO) for services rendered by Physician #1 to Medicaid recipients. Maywalt abused his role as a medical biller by wrongfully accessing and utilizing the company’s patient information and Physician #1’s name and identification number to submit false and fraudulent claims to a Florida Medicaid HMO for medical services purportedly rendered by Physician #1, which were not actually rendered. Maywalt also altered the “pay to” information associated with the HMO’s payment processor so that the payments for the non-rendered medical services were sent to bank accounts under Maywalt’s control.
