Jessica Jones and Elizabeth Putulin pleaded guilty in connection with a multimillion dollar Medicare fraud scheme. They conspired with Juan Camilo Perez Buitrago to submit more than $109 million in false and fraudulent claims for durable medical equipment (DME) by establishing shell companies in more than a dozen different states. Jones and Putulin purchased Medicare patient data from foreign and domestic call centers that targeted elderly patients and instructed call centers to contact the Medicare beneficiaries with an offer of ankle, arm, back, knee, and/or shoulder braces “at little to no cost.” Perez, who pleaded guilty in October 2020, then submitted Medicare claims for those patients without obtaining a prescriber’s order to ensure that the braces were medically necessary. Read a Department of Justice press release.
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