Attorney General Ashley Moody’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit announced the arrest of two Miami-Dade County healthcare workers for paying illegal kickbacks to Medicaid recipients. According to an investigation by MFCU, a mother-son duo, Gladys Aracely Gomez and Edward Exequiel Garcia-Gomez, paid illegal kickbacks to patients to receive psychosocial rehabilitation services to defraud the state Medicaid program of more than $300,000.
According to an investigation by MFCU, Gladys Gomez and Edward Garcia-Gomez illegally paid Medicaid recipients kickbacks to attend psychosocial rehabilitation services. Psychosocial rehabilitation is a therapy service that provides daily medication use, independent living and social-skills training, support to clients and families, housing, pre-vocational and transitional employment, structured activities to diminish tendencies toward isolation and withdrawal, education for the recipient and family about symptom management, medication and treatment options—all billable to the Medicaid program. One witness claimed that the defendants paid clients to sign progress sheets for the whole week. The investigation uncovered that the defendants gave some patients $250 biweekly or $500 monthly in return for attending the rehabilitation sessions. Both defendants are charged with Medicaid-provider fraud, a first-degree felony.
