A Texas man will spend the next two years in prison after he played a part in a multimillion-dollar hospice care fraud that routinely falsified medical records to convince patients they had “less than six months to live.”
Jose Garza, 44, the former operations manager for the Merida Group, was sentenced to 27 months behind bars on Wednesday after he recruited patients throughout the Rio Grande Valley, bribed doctors, and directed hospital employees to fake charts, the Department of Justice announced. Garza was part of a larger scheme by the organization, which had the slogan “hospice that you don’t have to die to use.”
Garza pleaded guilty in September 2019 to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and has since been ordered to pay $4.7 million in restitution to victims.
80-YEAR-OLD PLEADS GUILTY IN HOSPICE FRAUD SCHEME, WILL PAY $2.2 MILLION
Between 2009 and 2018, the Merida Group was found to have falsely convinced “thousands of patients with long-term incurable diseases” that they were near their natural death. Top brass at the company would bribe physicians with “illegal kickbacks” if they indicated on medical records that their patients were terminal, according to the DOJ.
Rodney Mesquias, 50, the ex-owner of the Merida Group, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in December 2020, while Henry McInnis, the former CEO of the business, was sentenced to 15 years in February 2020.
“Rodney Mesquias and his co-conspirators preyed on the most vulnerable population – those in need of hospice and home health care – to line their pockets with millions of dollars and engage in lavish spending,” Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski of the DOJ’s criminal division said in 2019. “I thank our law enforcement partners for their hard work and dedication to bringing these health care fraudsters to justice. We look forward to continuing our partnership as we expand the Strike Force into the Rio Grande Valley.”
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The investigation has been described as “one of the largest criminal hospice fraud cases tried to a jury,” according to the DOJ. The FBI and the Texas Department of Health and Human Services jointly led the investigation.
