Tag Archives: Medlink Professional Management Group

Florida Patient Recruiter Pleads Guilty to Role in ATC Medicare Fraud

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Frank Criado, who is 33 and lives in Miami, plead guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud, receiving illegal Medicare kickbacks, and defrauding the United States Government for his part in the American Therapeutic Corporation(ATC) and American Sleep Institute(ASI) Medicare Scam.

Criado, who is scheduled to be sentenced at the end of May and could face up to 15 years in prison, as well as a quarter of a million in fines, admitted in court that as a patient broker for ATC and ASI, and their parent company Medlink Professional Management Group INC, he received payments for each day that a patient he referred used ATC’s partial hospitalization program.

Criado, according to court records, was responsible for over seven million in Medicare Fraud, receiving illegal kickbacks in return for recruiting patients for ATC and ASI.

As part of the widespread medicare fraud scam, which was allegedly responsible for more than $200 million in fraudulent claims, patients were enrolled in mental health programs, called partial hospitalization programs, or PHPs. The premise of the programs offered by ATC and ASI was that patients would receive a high level of mental health treatment, with ASI offering sleep tests.

However, the PHPs were typically not medically necessary and not valid mental health programs, with ATC and ASI instead paying doctors, half-way house owners, patient recruiters, and Medicare recipients kickbacks to get Medicare recipients to attend the programs. ATC and ASI, along with their parent company Medlink, would then bill Medicare for the unnecessary and non-qualifying treatments. Kickbacks were paid to referring agents and, in some cases, the actual Medicare patients.

The case against American Therapeutic Corporation and others involved with the scam is ongoing and allegedly involved a large number of individuals in the Florida area. So far, over ten people have plead guilty, with more trials scheduled in April.

Another Sentenced in American Therapeutic Corporation Kickback Scheme

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This week, Natalie Evans, who is the fifty year old owner of a halfway houses located in Fort Lauderdale Florida, was sentenced to 28 months in prison after pleading guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. She was also ordered to pay a fine of around $250,000 and will serve 3 years of probation after release. She is the most recent in a string of convictions against those involved with the American Therapeutic Corporation(ATC) Medicare kickback scheme.

Evans is listed as the President of Vision of Hope Recovery, Inc, which was established in 2008 and is listed as a non-profit corporation in Florida. Together with the Vice President, Harvey Dixon, Evans ran five halfway houses in the Fort Lauderdale area. Most of Evans patients were recovering drug and substance abuse addicts.

According to her plea deal, Evans admitted to providing Medicare patients to American Therapeutic Corporation and American Sleep Institute(ASI), for a mental health treatment called a partial hospitalization program, or PHP. In return for providing Medicare recipients, Evans received kickbacks for each day the patient received treatment.

As per court records, Evans admitted that the patients did not need this type of treatment and that she was aware that ATC and ASI routinely billed Medicare for fraudulent treatments. She admitted to being responsible for over a half-million in fraudulent Medicare billings.

The investigation into American Therapeutic Corporation(ATC) and American Sleep Institute(ASI,) which are owned by Medlink Professional Management Group Inc, is ongoing. It is presumed to be one of the biggest Medicare fraud cases to date, responsible for over $200 million in fraudulent Medicare Billing and involving a number of owners, operators, and patient recruiters in the Florida area.