The owner of a South Florida clinic has pleaded guilty to defrauding Medicare to the tune of almost $20 million, the Associated Press reports. Isabel Medina could face 10 years in prison for her role in several health schemes.
In a separate case, a doctor who operated vein and weight loss clinics in the Tampa area will pay $400,000 to settle allegations of fraud, the Tampa Bay Business Journal reports. A whistleblower accused Dr. Ravi Sharma of billing Medicare for unnecessary procedures and instructing unqualified and unsupervised personnel to perform varicose vein injections.
Meanwhile, a Sarasota doctor with a history of discipline issues with the Florida Board of Medicine is now in financial trouble, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports. Leonard A. Rubinstein, who kept practicing even after his license was yanked, has defaulted on a $482,300 Wells Fargo loan.
