The owner and sole physician at a Bellflower medical clinic has pleaded guilty to submitting millions of dollars’ worth of false claims to a Medi-Cal healthcare program that provides family planning services to low-income and uninsured patients, causing more than $2.5 million in losses, the Justice Department announced. Robert Eyzaguirre, 77, of Torrance, pleaded guilty to one count of healthcare fraud, a felony that carries a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison. According to his plea agreement, Eyzaguirre owned and operated Dr. Robert’s Medical Center, a Bellflower-based medical clinic enrolled as a Family Planning, Access, Care and Treatment (Family PACT) provider run through the Medi-Cal public health program that California administered under Medicaid. At this clinic, Eyzaguirre employed and supervised Gary Lee Didio, 54, of Huntington Beach, and Sandra Rios, 51, of South Los Angeles. From at least December 2013 through January 2020, Eyzaguirre conspired with Didio and Rios to submit more than $4.6 million in fraudulent claims to the Family PACT program for family planning services that were never provided. Specifically, Rios picked random names from an online phone-and-address directory and created fake patient files, including inserting fake vital signs and patient notes.
