Governor Rick Scott Is Still Hiding Money

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Guest Blogger •

This year the Florida Legislature passed a new blind trust law. The ink had not dried on Gov. Rick Scott’s signature before he decided to test the new law. Scott wanted to make sure the money he had made documented on his questionable personal portfolio was in line with the new law, a law that he and his Republican cronies helped write.

Rick Scott made sure he “stacked the deck” beforehand. According to the Tampa Bay Times, five of (the Ethics Commission) nine members (were) appointed by the governor. “The governor has hit all the requirements of the statute,” said the panel’s general counsel Christopher Anderson, who added that Scott was “ahead of the game” in 2011 and complies with the new law.

Governor Rick Scott

Scott asked for the commission’s opinion to ensure the blind trust complies with a new law. “The governor has hit all the requirements of the statute,” said Anderson.
The voting public conveniently forgets what Scott did. The Sun Sentinel reports that Scott perpetrated fraud that “ was and still is the biggest Medicare fraud case in U.S. history and ended with the hospital giant Columbia/HCA paying a record $1.7 billion in fines, penalties and damages.” Scott was co-founder and CEO of Columbia/HCA in the 1990s, when the FBI launched a massive, multi-state investigation that led to the company pleading guilty to criminal charges of overbilling the government.
If fines and penalties of $1.7 Billion are any indication that big money was made then one must think there was a lot of it. Medicare insurance fraud is big money and Rick Scott made a bunch of it. The Tallahassee Democrat indicated that the amount of money that may have been made, “When Scott first sought office, he reported a net worth of $218 million, while the filing he turned in earlier this summer showed that his net worth was nearly $84 million as of the end of 2012.”
The fact that Scott refuses to take any money for being governor, 12-cents a year, allows him to do, basically, whatever he wants when filling out financial disclosure forms. It seems doubtful the state of Florida’s Republican Legislature really cares what he makes. The state is saving $130,00 in salary per year. NorthEscambia.com reported that “Gov. Rick Scott was worth $83.77 million as he wrapped up his second year in office, according to a newly posted financial disclosure form. The blind trust, which accounts for $72.8 million, made $3.1 million in interest last year.”
Dan Krassner, executive director of Integrity Florida, questioned the independence of the blind trust since the company managing Scott’s account — Hollow Brook Wealth Management — included Scott’s portfolio manager for 10 years. An accountant at the company also worked for Scott for 12 years. Old cronies? It must depend on who’s asking.
The question here is not whether Scott is crooked but just how much of that crooked money did he keep? Think about it when standing in the voting booth next year.
http://www.ringoffireradio.com/2013/09/governor-rick-scott-still-hiding-money/

Miami-Area Psychiatrist Pleads Guilty For Role In $200 Million Medicare Fraud Scheme

U.S. Department of Justice

June 30,  2011

WASHINGTON – A Miami-area psychiatrist pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Miami for his part in a fraud scheme that resulted in the submission of more than $200 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare, the Department of Justice, FBI and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced.
Dr. Alan Gumer, 64, of Tamarac, Fla., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud.   Gumer was charged on Feb. 15, 2011, with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and four counts of health care fraud.
According to court documents, Gumer was a psychiatrist at American Therapeutic Corporation (ATC), a Florida corporation headquartered in Miami.   ATC purported to operate partial hospitalization programs (PHPs) in seven different locations throughout South Florida and Orlando.  A PHP is a form of intensive treatment for severe mental illness.

Gumer admitted that he signed evaluations, notes and other documents in medical files for patients who did not need the treatment for which ATC billed Medicare.   Specifically, as a psychiatrist, Gumer knew that the patients attending ATC did not need intensive mental health treatment, and that the treatments offered by ATC were not the type of intensive treatments a PHP should provide.   Gumer admitted that he signed these files without examining the patients, or writing and reading the statements he was signing.   Gumer also admitted to writing prescriptions for psychiatric medications for patients who did not need them in order to make it appear to Medicare that the patients qualified for PHP treatment.   According to court documents, Gumer also referred hundreds of ATC patients to a related company, the American Sleep Institute (ASI), for unnecessary diagnostic sleep disorder testing.

According to court filings, Gumer’s co-defendants and ATC’s owners and operators paid kickbacks to owners and operators of assisted living facilities (ALFs) and halfway houses and to patient brokers in exchange for delivering ineligible patients to ATC and ASI.  In some cases, the patients received a portion of those kickbacks.  Throughout the course of the ATC and ASI conspiracy, millions of dollars in kickbacks were paid in exchange for Medicare beneficiaries, who did not qualify for PHP services, to attend treatment programs that were not legitimate PHP programs so that ATC and ASI could bill Medicare for more than $200 million in medically unnecessary services.

According to the plea agreement, Gumer’s participation in the fraud resulted in $19.3 million in fraudulent billing to the Medicare program.   Sentencing for Gumer is scheduled for Jan 19, 2012.  Gumer faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
ATC, its management company Medlink Professional Management Group Inc., and the owners and lead manager of ATC, Medlink and ASI, were charged with various health care fraud, money laundering and other offenses in a separate superseding indictment unsealed on Feb. 15, 2011.   Two of the three owners and the lead manager, as well as both ATC and Medlink, have pleaded guilty and have admitted to the fraudulent scheme and that more than $200 million in billings were submitted to the Medicare program as a part of the scheme.   They are scheduled for sentencing on Sept. 14, 2011, by U.S. District Court Judge James Lawrence King.   The trial of the third owner charged in the separate superseding indictment is scheduled to begin on Aug. 15, 2011.
The remaining 17 co-defendants named in the indictment in which Gumer was charged are scheduled to stand trial on Nov. 7, 2011, before U.S. District Judge Patricia A. Seitz.


Judge James Lawrence King.

 An indictment is merely an accusation and defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

Today’s guilty plea was announced by Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida; John V. Gillies, Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI’s Miami field office; and Special Agent-in-Charge Christopher Dennis of the HHS Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), Office of Investigations Miami office.
The criminal case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Jennifer L. Saulino of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section.  The case was investigated by the FBI and HHS-OIG and was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, supervised by the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.



Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer



Since its inception in March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force operations in nine locations have charged more than 1,000 defendants that collectively have billed the Medicare program for more than $2.3 billion.  In addition, HHS’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with the HHS-OIG are taking steps to increase accountability and decrease the presence of fraudulent providers.
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/June/11-crm-871.html
To learn more about the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT), go to:  www.stopmedicarefraud.gov .



http://www.cchrint.org/2011/07/01/miami-area-psychiatrist-pleads-guilty-for-role-in-200-million-medicare-fraud-scheme/