A 62 year old Orange County pharmacy owner who admitted to carrying out a $1.8 million insurance fraud scheme was sentenced Friday to three years in state prison.
The Orange County Register reports that Divina Catalasan, owner of Quality Care Pharmacy at 2413 S. Fairview St. in Santa Ana, pleaded guilty in May to three felony counts of fraudulent healthcare claims and grand theft, along with a sentencing enhancement for aggravated white-collar crime.
Catalasan operated a “complex and secretive scheme” that bilked MediCal, Medicare and Cal Optima, the county’s insurance program for the needy, Deputy Attorney General Ryan Scott said in court papers.
The California Department of Health Care Services during a 2015 audit learned that from 2011 through 2015 Catalasan had billed Medi-Cal more than $540,000 above what her purchase inventory actually showed. A deeper look a unit investigating potential fraud ultimately turned up a total of $1.8 million in over-billings through Medi-Cal, CalOptima and Medicare, according the California Attorney General’s Office.
“The funds she stole were deposited and intermingled in her personal and business bank accounts,” investigator Ernesto Cambrone alleged in a court motion seeking to analyze any money the defendant posts for bail to determine if it came from the alleged criminal behavior.
The pharmacy’s clientele consisted of residents of 40 board and care facilities throughout Southern California, according to prosecutors.
After arriving in the United States from her native Philippines in 1987, Catalasan worked her way up from a machine operator at a paper towel factory to become a pharmacy technician, a licensed pharmacist and ultimately a business owner, according to a sentencing brief.
While out of jail awaiting trial, a court filing said, she worked with members of her church to make and donate masks to medical professionals, nursing home patients, grocery store workers and female inmates.
At her sentencing, she was given credit for 602 days of time served in local lockup, records show.