A physician in St. Peters, Mo., pleaded guilty to his role in a conspiracy to make false statements resulting in more than $1.4 million in Medicare and Medicaid fraud.
Romel Izquierdo-Malon, MD, entered into a contract to provide a company's clients with telemedicine consultations and was paid $30 for each consultation, according to a Feb. 2 news release from the Justice Department.
Dr. Izquierdo-Malon signed pre-printed patient forms that certified for genetic tests he claimed were "medically necessary," but he never received the reports or used them for patient treatments.
The signed orders resulted in Medicare paying more than $1 million to laboratories billed for the tests between March 2017 and September 2019. Dr. Izquierdo-Malon also signed orders for testing from November 2018 to October 2019 that caused Medicaid to pay nearly $400,000.
Under federal statutes, Dr. Izquierdo-Malon is subject to a sentence of up to five years in federal prison without parole. He also must pay $140,788 in restitution as part of his plea agreement, the release said.