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Fraudsters in Texas, Miami feel the heat.

Home care fraudsters continue to make life harder for legitimate home care providers, particularly in Florida and Texas.

Example #1: In Miami, Trust Care Health Services Inc. owners Roberto Marrero and San-dra Fernandez Viera, plus patient recruiter Enriq-ue Rodriguez, have pled guilty to a $20 million Medicare home health fraud scheme, says the De-partment of Justice in a release. According to court documents, Marrero and Viera negotiated and paid kickbacks and bribes, interacted with patient recruiters, and coordinated and oversaw the submission of fraudulent Medicare claims. In addition to paying recruiters, including Rodriguez, for referrals, Marrero and Viera paid physician practice contacts for certifications, plan of care and other documentation, prosecutors say.

Marrero, Viera and Rodriguez acknowledged their involvement in similar fraudulent schemes at other Miami HHAs including Global Nursing Home Health Inc., Lovable Home Health Services Corp., New Concepts In Health Inc., Ubieta Health System Inc., R&M Health Care Inc., Vital Care Home Health Services Inc., Cen-trum Home Health Care Inc. and A&B Health Services Inc., the DOJ says.

Marrero, Viera and Rodriguez face sentencing in November.

Example #2: Also in Miami, patient recruit-ers Elizabeth Monteagudo and Cristobal Gonzal-ez have pled guilty to soliciting and receiving kickbacks and bribes from the owners and operators of Caring Nurse Home Health Care Corp. and/or Good Quality Home Health Care Inc. in return for allowing the agencies to bill Medicare for the recruited patients. The resulting claims for home care and therapy services were medically unnecessary and/or not provided, the DOJ says in a release. Monteagudo also admitted to her involvement with $7 million in fraudulent billings for Starlite Home Health Agency Inc., which she owned and operated.

The Caring Nurse and Good Quality owners, Rogelio Rodriguez and Raymond Aday, already pled guilty to fraud and have been sentenced to a nine- and four-year prison sentence, respectively, the DOJ notes.

Example #3: In Corpus Christi, Texas, former Caring Touch Home Health employees Syl-via Salinas Ramirez and Debra Jean Velasquez have pled guilty to submitting false claims to Medicaid and Medicaid managed care plans. Ramirez and Velasquez admitted they created bogus time sheets for former Caring Touch employees for home health services that had not been provided and then fraudulently billed Medicaid in the name of Caring Touch for those non-existent services, the DOJ says in a release.

The women "created phony payroll records from the fraudulent time sheet which they then sent to Caring Touch’s payroll staff," the DOJ says. Ramirez and Velasquez then obtained the payroll checks, forged the signatures of the former Caring Touch employees, and cashed the checks and divided the money among themselves.

The women have agreed to pay $155,000 in restitution. They face sentencing in December.

Example #4: In Weslaco, Texas, the feds have asked the court to let them keep funds seized from a home health agency’s bank account in April, reports The Monitor newspaper in McAllen. Author-ities seized nearly $78,000 from Sambritt, reveals a recently filed civil forfeiture complaint.

While no criminal charges have been filed in the case, prosecutors allege that the company submitted claims for services that were not provided nor medically necessary, or without obtaining signed documents from the patients doctor and even forging doctor’s signature, the newspaper says. Sambritt is also accused of having its directors sign and alter Medicare paperwork, as well as ordering employees to do the same.