4 Accused of Medicare Fraud

The owners of a Los Angeles ambulance service and an employee were arrested Friday on charges of bilking the federal Medicare program out of more than $2 million.

Gregory Plotkin, 48, and Boris Shpirt, 49, both of Beverly Hills, were taken into custody at the offices of Greybor Medical Transportation Inc., along with Daniel Gonzalez, 29, of Pico Rivera, a company supervisor.

A fourth suspect, Robert White, 46, of Van Nuys and Mission Hills, was being sought.

A 26-count indictment accuses the four men of falsifying claims to Medicare from 1998 to 2000.

One ruse allegedly employed by Greybor was to claim that a patient was “bed-confined” when transported in an ambulance, a requirement for reimbursement under Medicare regulations. In fact, the indictment charged, many of those patients rode in the front seat.

At other times, the indictment said, a Greybor ambulance would ferry several people simultaneously, but the company submitted claims indicating that they were transported separately.

The four suspects were also accused of falsely claiming that some patients were driven to receive dialysis treatments, which is reimbursable by Medicare.

When Medicare launched an audit of Greybor’s claims two years ago, Plotkin submitted altered medical records to cover up the fraud, the indictment said.

Greybor, located at 119 N. Belmont Ave., Echo Park, operates a fleet of 14 ambulances.

Plotkin and Shpirt also operated two medical equipment companies, Pride Medical Industries and GABA Medical Industries.

The indictment accused Shpirt and White of providing Spanish-speaking Medicare beneficiaries with equipment they did not need or want.

Investigators said employees at Pride and GABA would persuade elderly Spanish speakers to sign English-language documents that turned out to be receipts for the equipment, some of which was never delivered.

Shpirt then submitted those receipts to Medicare for reimbursement, according to the indictment. The U.S. attorney’s office said the government’s loss from those fraudulent claims has not yet been determined, but is estimated at several hundred thousand dollars.

The case was investigated by the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general and the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal division.

A judge ordered Plotkin and Shpirt each to post $750,000 bond. Gonzalez’s bail was set at $50,000.

Outside court, defense lawyer Jilbert Tahmazian said the government’s case was “without merit” and predicted that the suspects would be exonerated.