A Florida man has been charged with impersonating a New Jersey doctor to make falsified claims.
A Florida man is now facing charges in a massive health insurance scam. To swindle his insurance company out of about a million dollars, he allegedly assumed the identity of a doctor in New Jersey.
The man proceeded to file a number of fraudulent claims against his medical plan.
By using the New Jersey doctor’s identity, the man allegedly submitted over $1 million in fake insurance claims. The health insurance scam involved services that had allegedly been provided at a Morris County medical center. However, upon investigation, it rapidly became clear that the medical center did not exist.
The case involves Yoandi Marrero from Hialeah, Florida. It also has to do with a registered company called the PA Clinical Center Inc., which Marrero allegedly used for the purposes of filing his false claims. That said, the company is only a ghost medical practice and does not exist in real life.
The health insurance scam involved fraud, second and third degree theft and fourth degree identity theft.
Marerro is now being charged with insurance fraud for the $1 million in claims he made against his insurer. He is also being charged with attempted second degree theft by deception in addition to third degree theft by deception. He has been charged with fourth degree identity theft. The indictment was issued by a Trenton, New Jersey state Grand Jury.
Beyond those charges, Marrero is also facing an additional fourth degree identity theft charge within this alleged insurance fraud scheme, said the Insurance Journal. So far, the indictment is an accusation. Until Marrero is proven otherwise, he continues to be considered innocent.
“Insurance fraud is a reprehensible crime, but it’s even worse when criminals cloak themselves in the identities of unsuspecting, law-abiding citizens to commit their illegal acts, as this defendant allegedly did,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, New York Attorney General. The statement was issued in a press release from the Attorney General’s office.
“We will vigorously investigate and prosecute anyone who blatantly exploits the privacy of others in order to steal benefits from insurance providers,” he added.
The fraudulent claims in this health insurance scam case were made through United Healthcare Insurance Company for a number of different types of medical services and physical therapy.