The executives from Hollywood Pavilion (HP) LLC are the first executives from a licensed state hospital prosecuted by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, according to Acting Assistant Attorney General Raman.
“They abused the public’s trust by deliberately targeting disabled substance abusers and conning them into spending weeks locked down at a psychiatric hospital,” Raman says,
according to a release.
From at least 2003 through at least August 2012, the hospital billed Medicare about $67 million, the release states.
But services weren’t properly rendered, patients didn’t qualify for the services and patients were procured through kickbacks and bribes, according to the release. Once the nine-year scheme was discovered, the hospital was shut down.
Karen Kallen-Zury, 60, was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Daisy Miller, 44, was sentenced to 15 years behind bars. Christian Coloma, 50; was sentenced to 12 years in prison. All three were ordered to pay millions in restitution.
A sentencing hearing for Michele Petrie, another convicted executive of the hospital, is scheduled for Dec. 18.
The defendants submitted false and fraudulent claims to Medicare through the state-licensed psychiatric hospital, the release states. “The defendants paid illegal bribes and kickbacks to patient brokers to obtain Medicare beneficiaries as patients at HP who did not qualify for psychiatric treatment. The defendants then submitted claims to Medicare for those patients who were procured through bribes and kickbacks.”
Since March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force has charged more than 1,500 defendants that collectively have billed Medicare more than $5 billion.