A doctor and two nurses who were involved with the Miami ABC Medicare Fraud scam plead guilty to their roles in a scam that resulted in over $25 million in fraudulent Medicare claims. Each of the defendants plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud.

The nurses, Luisa Morciego and Eneida Fry, were both sentenced to 2 years in federal prison, in addition to having to pay a fine of around $300,000 and $400,000 in fines respectively. In addition, they will also serve 3 years of probation after their release. The doctor, Jose Nunez, who is 63 years old, was sentenced to 3 years and 3 months in prison, as well as a fine of over $1 million.

According to the plea agreement signed by Nunez, who owned and operated two Miami based medical offices, he provided patients to Florida Home Health Care Providers and ABC Home Health Inc, as well as providing Certificates of Medical Necessity, prescriptions, and other documents required by Medicare to accompany certain types of claims. In most cases, these services were allegedly not needed and often not even preformed. ABC Home Health and Florida Home Health Care provided a number of therapy services, providing kickbacks to doctors and other medical professionals who referred patients to their services.

The fraud perpetuated by Fry, Morciego, and Nunez allegedly took place for 3 years between 2006 and 2009, with over 40 patients being referred to ABC Medical and Florida Home Health Care. The prescriptions and certificates of medical necessity provided by Nunez was responsible for around $1.5 Million.

The nurses, Luisa Morciego and Eneida Fry, were employed by ABC Home medical and allegedly were responsible for falsifying records in order to bill Medicare for services that were either not needed or, in some cases, not preformed. Fry also, according to court records, helped recruit doctors of local home medical clinics to refer patients, who then received kickbacks for their parts in the Medicare Fraud.