According to the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor, 33-year-old Yoandi Marrero of Hialeah, Florida was charged last month in connection to his orchestrating a $1 million insurance fraud scheme by assuming the identity of a New Jersey doctor.
Marrero, the registered agent of PA Clinical Center, Inc., a phantom medical practice, “allegedly used the personal information of a Hudson County family physician to submit fraudulent insurance claims to United Healthcare Insurance Company (‘United Healthcare’) for a variety of physical therapy and medical services – including x-rays, ultrasound therapy, and electrical stimulation – purportedly provided to more than a dozen patients at PA Clinical Center located in medical suite on Bloomfield Avenue in Denville,” states the Office of the Attorney General.
Marrero collected over $46,000 in payments from United Healthcare. However, a United Healthcare member reported that a doctor had billed her insurance for services that were never rendered. Investigators reviewed billing records, which led them to Marrero as the registered agent, and a vacant storage unit as the site of PA Clinical Center.
It is also concerning that, according to prosecutors, “neither the doctor, not the patients who allegedly received the treatments had ever been to the PA Clinical Center; and they had no idea how Marrero got their personal information.”
As a result, Marrero and PA Clinical Center, Inc. have officially been charged with second degree insurance fraud, second degree attempted theft by deception, third degree theft by deception, and fourth degree identity theft.