NotAIDS! News
January 17, 2007

The Miami based HIV clinic Medlife Services has been closed by regulators reports the Miami Herald(Dorschner, 12 Jan 07). Clinic head Sonia Rivera is being charged with extorting $73,000.00 from Medicaid in an overbilling scheme with Miami phsyicians, Victor and Delsa Ferran who cooperated with investigators.

State Attorney General Bill McCollum released the following statement last Friday, 12 January 2007.

TALLAHASSEE - The president of a Miami-Dade HIV/AIDS infusion clinic was arrested today on charges of organized scheme to defraud, Attorney General Bill McCollum announced. Sonia Rivera allegedly used her clinic to fraudulently bill the Florida Medicaid program more than $73,000 for an expensive prescription drug used to treat HIV and AIDS. She was arrested by investigators with the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.

The investigation into Rivera, 46, was initiated in 2004 when the Attorney General’s Office received information about her clinic from the Agency for Health Care Administration. Rivera owned and operated Medlife Services, Corp., an HIV/AIDS infusion clinic in Miami. Investigators believe Rivera solicited various physicians with Medicare and Medicaid provider numbers to work at her clinic, then abused their provider numbers to submit fraudulent claims for WinRho, an HIV/AIDS treatment medication.

“To use a clinic that provides life-saving medications as a cover for fraud is unspeakable,” said McCollum. “Behavior of this type will not be tolerated.”

The billings submitted to both programs were for quantities of WinRho more than one hundred times larger than the average WinRho prescription. The scheme defrauded the Medicaid program out of more than $73,000 over a seven-month period. Rivera’s clinic has since been shut down.

Rivera is currently being held at the Miami-Dade County jail. She is charged with engaging in an organized scheme to defraud, a first-degree felony. If convicted, she faces up to 30 years in prison and a fine of $10,000. The case will be jointly prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office for the 11th Judicial Circuit.

A copy of Rivera’s arrest affidavit is available here.

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