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A federal jury in Los Angeles convicted the former owner, operator and managers of a Southern California ambulance company of health care fraud charges in connection with a Medicare fraud scheme of at least $2.4 million.

In health care fraud cases in the past, the prosecutions tended to be for “ghost billing,” for illegal kickbacks or for services clearly not provided. These past years have brought on a large number of new cases where the services were provided but there are allegations of “no medical necessity.” A recent example is the case filed against ProMed Medical Transportation in the Central District of California which was successfully prosecuted.

Yaroslav Proshak, aka Steven Proshak, 47, of Valley Village, California; Emilia Zverev, 58, of Van Nuys, California; and Sharetta Michelle Wallace, 37, of Inglewood, California, each were convicted this week of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and five counts of health care fraud following a two-week trial. Proshak’s sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 24, 2015, and Zverev’s and Wallace’s sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 30, 2015, all before U.S. District Judge S. James Otero of the Central District of California, who presided over the trial.

Proshak owned and operated ProMed Medical Transportation, an ambulance transportation company in the greater Los Angeles area that provided non-emergency ambulance transportation services to Medicare beneficiaries, many of whom were dialysis patients. Zverev was the billing manager, and Wallace supervised ProMed’s emergency medical technicians (EMTs).

The evidence at trial demonstrated that, between May 2008, and October 2010, the defendants conspired to bill Medicare for ambulance transportation services for individuals whom the defendants knew did not need such services. In addition, the evidence showed that the defendants instructed EMTs who worked at ProMed to conceal the true medical conditions of patients they were transporting by altering requisite paperwork and creating fraudulent documents to justify the transportation services. According to the Indictment, the government contended that the owner and manager altered the “run sheets” completed during the ambulance transportation and instructed employees to alter the “run sheets” and to ensure that they did not write certain terms to indicate that they were ambulatory or able to walk.