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RN sentenced to four years in Texas health care fraud

It’s a little more than a 3-hour drive north of Austin to get to Rowlett. The Dallas suburb is home to a registered nurse recently sentenced to spend 4 years in a federal prison for her participation in a health care fraud that prosecutors said included nearly $375 million in false claims.

The 56-year-old RN was also ordered by the court to reimburse $400,000 to Medicare. She was found guilty of health care fraud, conspiracy to commit health care fraud and of making false statements to secure Medicare benefits.

The case revolves around Dr. Jacques Roy, a Rockwall doctor convicted last year on similar charges. According to a recent news report, the 59-year-old physician awaits sentencing. His potential sentence dwarfs the punishment meted out to the nurse: 105 years.

Past news reports stated that Roy orchestrated the scheme to defraud Medicare and Medicaid by billing the federal programs for fake home health care patients. Prosecutors say he and his accomplices recruited homeless people and others to be “patients” and then billed Medicare and Medicaid for medical services that were unneeded or not performed.

Roy had 11,000 such “patients” before he and co-conspirators were arrested.

“A doctor cannot care for 11,000 patients at once,” a prosecutor said at the doctor’s trial that resulted in convictions.

There is no doubt that some health care fraud investigations uncover evidence of wrongdoing, just as there is no doubt that investigators often discover that subjects under investigation have done nothing wrong.

If you or your organization is under investigation, you can have at your side at every step of the process Austin attorneys experienced in protecting rights, careers and freedom.