Gainesville Woman Convicted in $8.6M Medicare Fraud Scheme: Fake Prescriptions Used to Bill Medicare for Orthotic Braces
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on October 27 that a federal jury in the Middle District of Florida convicted Sophie Dufort, 57, of Gainesville, Florida, for her role in a Medicare fraud scheme that caused the submission of over $8.6 million in fraudulent claims. Dufort owned a durable medical equipment (DME) company and managed several other DME companies; the scheme took advantage of elderly and disabled beneficiaries.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Dufort conspired with Paula Pirone, 70, of Ocala, Florida, and others to submit fraudulent claims to Medicare based on fake doctors' prescriptions for orthotic braces. The conspirators illegally purchased the prescriptions from purported marketing companies that used high-pressure, manipulative telemarketing calls to obtain Medicare beneficiaries' information; one co-conspirator admitted some of the purported call recordings from overseas "would be faked." The marketing companies then paid medical practitioners to sign prescriptions without contacting or evaluating patients, or stole doctors' credentials to create forged prescriptions, and sold them to the conspirators' DME companies.
Dufort and her co-conspirators then shipped braces to beneficiaries and billed Medicare for millions of dollars, even though the beneficiaries did not want or need the braces and no doctor had examined them. A medical expert testified that using these combinations of braces could be "very dangerous" for the elderly Medicare population. When people complained and wanted to return the braces, they were told to "just get rid of them or just pass them down" so the conspirators would not have to pay Medicare back.
Dufort was convicted of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud (maximum 20 years), two counts of health care fraud (10 years each), one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and to offer and pay illegal kickbacks (5 years), and one count of offering and paying illegal kickbacks (10 years). Sentencing is scheduled for January 2027. The case was investigated by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) and the FBI, and was announced by Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald and Middle District of Florida U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于 Tampa 的 Sam M. Gibbons 联邦法院，佛罗里达州中区联邦法院所在地（资料图）。Ebyabe 摄，Wikimedia Commons，CC BY-SA 3.0。Photo: The Sam M. Gibbons United States Courthouse in Tampa, home of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida (file photo). By Ebyabe, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
