Feds: Miami doc’s $38M health care fraud scheme paid for condos, cars; now he’s going to prison

MIAMI – A Miami doctor’s six-year, $38 million well being care fraud scheme paid for luxurious vehicles and beachfront condominiums, prosecutors say.

However 63-year-old Armando Valdes received’t be doing any driving the place he’ll be dwelling subsequent—and the lodging are positive to be a step down.

That’s as a result of on Tuesday, a choose sentenced him to 5 years in federal jail after a responsible plea earlier this 12 months.

In accordance with the U.S. Division of Justice, Valdes owned and operated Miami-based Gasiel Medical Providers from Feb. 2015 by means of July 2021 and submitted roughly $38 million in fraudulent claims to United Healthcare and Blue Cross Blue Protect.

These claims have been for infusions of the drug Infliximab, higher identified by the model title Remicade.

The drug is used to deal with various sicknesses, together with Crohn’s illness, ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid and psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and plaque psoriasis.

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It’s some of the costly medication in the marketplace—a single dose can retail for almost $10,000.

However regardless of submitting $38 million in insurance coverage claims, Valdes admitted he by no means offered a lot as a single dose of the remedy to a affected person.

“Valdes tried to hide his involvement on this fraud scheme by distancing himself on paper from the medical clinic,” the DOJ mentioned in a information launch. “For instance, Valdes employed a 91-year-old doctor at Gasiel Medical Providers who not often handled sufferers and by no means prescribed Infliximab, however who Valdes listed because the rendering supplier for all $38 million of the fraudulently billed Infliximab infusions.”

Prosecutors mentioned he additionally paid one other particular person to behave as Gasiel Medical Providers’ “nominee proprietor.”

“This different particular person, and never Valdes, was listed because the president and registered agent of the clinic in company information and different official paperwork,” they mentioned.

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Valdes’ ill-gotten features included 4 actual property properties, together with a beachfront condominium in Pompano Seashore, in addition to quite a few luxurious automobiles, together with a Cadillac Escalade and a Tesla Mannequin S, prosecutors mentioned.

Federal prosecutors are dealing with asset forfeiture, in line with the DOJ.