A federal jury in Texas found Yolanda Hamilton, M.D., 56, a physician who was the owner and operator of a medical clinic in Houston, Texas, guilty of participating in a $16 million Medicare fraud scheme in which she signed false and fraudulent “plans of care” and other medical documents for purported home health services. According to the evidence presented at trial, from January 2012 to August 2016, Hamilton and others conspired to defraud Medicare by signing false and fraudulent plans of care and other medical documents, and submitting fraudulent claims to Medicare to make it falsely appear that the patients of Hamilton and her co-conspirators qualified and received home-health services under Medicare. In fact, Hamilton and her co-conspirators paid the patients to sign-up and recertify for home health services when those services were often not medically necessary, not provided or both. The evidence also showed that Hamilton charged home health agencies an illegal kickback in the form of a patient “fee” for certifying and recertifying patients for home-health services that the home health agencies, not the patients, would pay. The scheme resulted in approximately $16 million in false and fraudulent claims for home-health services to Medicare, the evidence showed.
