Public Health: woman pleads guilty to arranging fake patients

According to the plea documents, beginning in approximately September 2007, King began recruiting and transporting patients to a clinic called Ritecare LLC. Ritecare, was owned and operated by her conspirators and had locations in Detroit and Livonia, Mich. King admitted that she and a co-conspirator paid kickbacks to Medicare beneficiaries that she recruited and transported to Ritecare. According to the plea documents, the owners and operators of Ritecare were the source of the funds used by King to pay the Medicare beneficiaries she recruited. King admitted that she would keep part of the funds she received from the owners and operators of Ritecare to secure patients as a kickback for referring the Medicare beneficiaries she recruited. Typically, the owners of Ritecare would provide USD100-USD150 per patient King recruited, with King retaining USD50-USD75 of that amount for the referral.

According to the plea documents, the patients King recruited had to subject themselves to medically unnecessary tests to receive the money. King admitted that, in accordance with instructions from the owners and operators of Ritecare, she instructed the patients to claim they had certain symptoms to trigger medically unnecessary tests. Consequently, the patients' medical records contained false symptoms allowing Ritecare to deceive Medicare as to the legitimacy and medical necessity of the tests it performed.

King admitted that she was responsible for recruiting at least 269 patients to Ritecare. Through her recruitment efforts, King caused the submission of approximately USD940,760 in false or fraudulent billings by Ritecare. Medicare paid approximately USD533,643 on those claims.