United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg announced that Omar Solari (35, Fort Lauderdale) has pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit healthcare fraud in a $36.2 million scheme in which pharmacy owners paid kickbacks and bribes to telemarketers and telemedicine providers to secure orders for medically unnecessary prescriptions that were billed to Medicare. According to the plea agreement, Solari and his co-conspirators owned and operated pharmacies that participated in the Medicare program. From approximately September 2018 through November 2021, Solari and his co-conspirators paid kickbacks and bribes to telemarketing companies in exchange for recruiting Medicare beneficiaries to accept prescriptions for various medications — mainly topical creams — which the beneficiaries usually did not want or need. Solari also owned and operated a telemarketing company, through which he received kickbacks from the pharmacies in exchange for beneficiary leads he provided.
Solari and his co-conspirators also paid kickbacks and bribes to telemedicine companies that employed or contracted with physicians who signed the prescriptions. The physicians had no physician-patient relationship with the beneficiaries and typically signed the prescriptions after a cursory telephone conversation with the beneficiary or with no contact at all. After obtaining Medicare beneficiary information and the signed prescriptions, Solari and his co-conspirators submitted claims to Medicare for medically unnecessary medications, sometimes through multiple pharmacies they owned and controlled in a practice known as “recycling,” and were reimbursed more than $36.2 million by Medicare Part D.
