Prosecutors said Bertha Blanco tipped off healthcare facilities operators about surprise inspections and patient complaints in exchange for more than $500,000 in bribes.
A career employee with Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration was sentenced to more than four years in prison after pleading guilty to soliciting more than $500,000 in bribes from skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, and assisted living facilities, Florida state and federal officials said.
In exchange for the bribes, prosecutors said Bertha Blanco, 66, of Miami, provided the purchasers with sensitive, nonpublic AHCA reports and information related to their facilities, from at least 2007 through 2015.
The information included the schedules of future unannounced inspections by AHCA surveyors and previously undisclosed patient complaints filed with AHCA.
AHCA’s Division of Health Quality Assurance oversees licensure and regulation of healthcare facilities in Florida that receive Medicare and Medicaid funds, including skilled nursing facilities, assisted living facilities and home health agencies.
Blanco, who had worked at AHCA for 30 years, knew that the information she provided in exchange for bribes could be used to falsify medical paperwork and to temporarily remedy deficiencies so that AHCA would not discover lapses in patient care and revoke the licenses of the facilities that had received the information, prosecutors said.
Blanco, who pleaded guilty to one count of bribery on Oct. 13, was also ordered to pay $441,000 in restitution and to forfeit $100,000, which represents the gross proceeds traced to Blanco’s commission of the offense.
In addition to Blanco, six facilities operators were charged with various counts of healthcare fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, bribery and obstruction of justice in connection with the scheme. Five of the defendants have already pleaded guilty, and one awaits trial.
When the charges against Blanco were unsealed last summer, the Miami Herald’s Jay Weaver described her as “a small cog in the complicated operation” that “has been touted as the nation’s biggest Medicare fraud case.” Blanco made less than $32,000 per year, while healthcare mogul Philip Esformes made millions, his enterprise allegedly aided by Blanco’s information.
Esformes was indicted separately and is scheduled for trial in March.
John Commins is a content specialist and online news editor for HealthLeaders, a Simplify Compliance brand.