Kevin Karl Wills, Jr. (48, Ft. Lauderdale) pleaded guilty to conspiring to receive kickbacks in return for the referral of Medicare beneficiaries for the provision of COVID-19 tests and to purchase and sell Medicare beneficiary identification numbers. According to the plea agreement, Wills and a co-conspirator owned and operated a company that engaged marketers who illegally obtained Medicare beneficiary identifying information. They entered into “consulting” agreements with medical service providers whereby they introduced the marketers to the providers, and the marketers agreed to supply the providers with lists of Medicare beneficiaries and their identifying information, including their Medicare beneficiary identification numbers. The providers then shipped COVID-19 tests to the identified beneficiaries and billed Medicare for the tests, then paid both the defendant’s company and the marketers a set dollar amount per beneficiary.
However, the providers paid this amount only if a claim submitted on behalf of a beneficiary was reimbursed by Medicare. Such payments were illegal kickbacks under federal law. The actions of Wills and his co-conspirators caused the submission of approximately 152,00 fraudulent claims to Medicare by several different medical service providers, which resulted in reimbursements from Medicare totaling approximately $14,405,700. Wills received a total of approximately $652,312 in kickbacks, which he agreed to forfeit to the government.
