Dr. Rodriguez pleaded guilty in March, admitting that he and his co-conspirators routinely billed Medicare for services that were medically unnecessary and in many instances were never provided. Dr. Rodriguez further admitted that he purchased only a small fraction of the drugs that were purportedly administered to patients at his clinic, Midway Medical Center.
Most of the services allegedly provided to patients at Midway were billed to the Medicare program as treatments for thrombocytopenia, a disorder involving a low count of platelets in the blood. According to the plea documents, none of Midway’s patients actually had low blood platelet counts. Dr. Rodriguez and his co-conspirators used chemists to manipulate the blood samples drawn from Midway’s patients before the blood was sent to a laboratory for analysis to make it appear that they had low platelet counts. In his plea, Dr. Rodriguez admitted to ordering that patients at Midway receive medications designed to treat thrombocytopenia despite knowing that the laboratory results had been falsified and that the patients did not actually have that condition.
In his plea, Dr. Rodriguez admitted that he was listed as medical director and practicing physician for five other Miami-area HIV infusion clinics between Oct. 2003 and Feb. 2005, where he engaged in similar criminal activity. Dr. Rodriguez admitted that he and his co-conspirators at these other clinics billed the Medicare program for HIV injection and infusion services that Dr. Rodriguez knew were medically unnecessary and in some instances were never provided. Dr. Rodriguez admitted to causing more than $20 million in false claims to be submitted to the Medicare program at all of his clinics, including Midway.
Read the HHS release on the Miami physician sentencing for Medicare fraud.
