A federal grand jury returned an indictment last week charging Miami residents Lorena Osella, 43, and Juan Luis Matos, 58, with running a mental healthcare fraud scheme that bilked Medicaid out of almost $1 million. According to the indictment, Osella owned Lighthouse Community Center LLC, a clinic in Doral, Florida that claimed to offer psychosocial rehabilitation (PSR) services, a type of mental health counseling designed to help people with depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders cope with their conditions and improve their ability to perform job tasks and daily life activities. Osella and Matos used bribes to generate business for the clinic, says the indictment: They offered and paid kickbacks to Medicaid beneficiaries. In exchange, the beneficiaries registered as patients with the clinic and agreed to receive PSR services via telemedicine that they either did not need or that were not billed as provided. During the time they fraudulently billed Medicaid, Osella and Matos are charged with illegally receiving Florida unemployment benefits as well.
