Defendant was ordered to pay over $6 million in restitution
FRESNO, Calif. — Sandra Haar, 59, of Merced, was sentenced
on Monday by U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. O’Neil to five years in prison and
ordered to pay $6,107,846 in restitution for health care fraud and conspiracy
to receive kickbacks, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced. Haar was
ordered to self-surrender on Jan. 15, 2020, to begin serving her sentence.
Haar was the founder and chief executive officer of Horisons
Unlimited, a nonprofit public benefit corporation that provided health and
dental services in Merced and surrounding communities. According to court
documents, between January 1, 2014, and March 2017, Haar orchestrated a scheme
to bill Medicare and Medi-Cal for services she knew were not reimbursable, and
she profited by over $3.7 million from her fraud. For example, Haar billed Medi‑Cal
for health and dental services that were not rendered and for unnecessary
health care services. She also billed Medi-Cal for office visits with
purportedly licensed doctors when the patients instead were dispensed Suboxone,
an opioid medication, in the parking lots of McDonald’s and Rite Aid in
baggies.
According to court documents, Haar also received thousands
of dollars in kickbacks in cash from an account executive at a laboratory in
exchange for using it for patients’ laboratory testing.
This case was the product of an investigation by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Office of Inspector General (HHS OIG), the California Department of Health Care
Services, and the California Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud & Elder Abuse.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Lee S. Bickley and Michael Tierney prosecuted the
case.
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