A Redondo Beach woman was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years behind bars for billing Medicare more than $24 million by submitting fraudulent claims for medically unnecessary medical equipment — mostly power wheelchairs — and repairs, many of which were never performed.
Tamara Motley, 55, was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr. to pay $13.1 million in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Motley was found guilty by a federal jury in downtown Los Angeles in June of 20 counts of health care fraud, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
According to evidence presented at her five-day trial, Motley was the de facto owner of Hawthorne-based Action Medical Equipment and Supplies. From January 2013 to November 2016, she was also the de facto owner of Ventura-based Kaja Medical Equipment & Supply. Both companies were enrolled with Medicare in the names of Motley’s out-of-state relatives.
Motley orchestrated a scheme in which she paid accomplices for patient referrals and then directed them to take patients to corrupt physicians, who prescribed medically unnecessary durable medical equipment, such as power wheelchairs, that her companies used to submit fraudulent bills to Medicare, evidence showed.
In January 2011, when Medicare changed the reimbursement rules for the wheelchairs to make the upfront payments less lucrative to suppliers, Action switched to billing Medicare for power wheelchair repairs, and continued that scheme at Kaja once Action was shut down.
The repairs were not medically necessary because the patients did not need the chairs to begin with, were not needed to make the wheelchairs serviceable in any event, and often simply were not performed. These repairs were expensive — often billed for $3,000-$4,000 — and accounted for nearly half of Action’s billings and almost all of Kaja’s.
Over an eight-year period, Action billed Medicare more than $18.2 million for durable medical equipment — most for power wheelchairs, but also for accessories, knee braces and back braces — and repair or replacement. Medicare paid Action nearly $10.3 million.
Between July 2013 and November 2016, Kaja billed Medicare $6.3 million, primarily for repairs. Medicare paid Kaja about $2.8 million for those claims, evidence showed.