Sandra Jimenez, who is 38 years old and from Miami, plead guilty yesterday as part of the ongoing American Therapeutic Corporation, or ATC, Medicare Fraud Scheme. She plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and, according to the Department of Justice, was responsible for around $45 million in fraudulent Medicare claims.

As part of Jimenez’s guilty plea, she admitted responsibility for providing kickbacks to assisted living facility owners who provided, typically, unqualified patients for American Therapeutic Corporation’s(ATC) and the American Sleep Institutes'(ASI) partial hospitalization programs, or PHPs.

Jimenez’s worked as a Marketer for these companies, which according to her court statements, entailed locating business owners and those who worked at half-way houses or assisted living facilities, who would be able to refer Medicare patients to her employers partial hospitalization programs. The owners received kickbacks for each day their referred patients stayed in the PHP, which Jimenez has admitted to arranging.

In addition to her work with ATC and ASI, Jimenez also, as part of her guilty plea, admitted to a separate Medicare fraud scheme she was involved with, related to Priority Home Health. In this scheme, Jimenez and others that worked with the Miami based home medical agency, actively recruited Medicare recipients to their company who were not eligible to receive services from the company.

Jimenez sentencing is scheduled for the end of June, June 27, 2012, where should could face up to fifteen years in prison and up to a quarter of a million in fines.

The American Therapeutic Corporation and American Sleep Institute Medicare fraud scam is one of the largest in the company and relied on a large network of doctors, recruiters, and even Medicare recipients, who provided mostly ineligible Medicare patients to receive mental health services. These services would not qualify as partial hospitalization programs and were responsible for more than $200 million in Medicare fraud.

Many defendants have already been tried and convicted in Federal court for their part in this scam, with other trials set for the following months.

The defendants include a wide range of individuals, including those from the parent company, Medlink Professional Management Group Inc.