Two CA women indicted for alleged $4.8 Million Medicare hospice fraud

CALIFORNIA – The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced June 3 the arrest of a West Covina hospice owner on a 14-count indictment for filing $4.8 million in false Medicare claims.

Normita Sierra, a.k.a. “Normie,” 71, received more than $3.8 million in payments for unnecessary services for people not terminally ill, and paying kickbacks to marketers to procure patients.

Sierra is charged with nine counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy, and four counts of illegal remuneration for health care referrals.

Rowena Elegado, 55, a.k.a. “Weng,” of West Covina was also arrested and charged with one count of conspiracy, and four counts of illegal remuneration for health care referrals.

Sierra used code word “girl scout cookies” to refer to kickbacks

According to the indictment, Sierra owned and operated Golden Meadows Hospice and D’Alexandria Hospice which billed Medicare for hospice services for patients who were not terminally ill.

The scheme lasted from September 2018 to October 2022.

Sierra and Elegado allegedly worked together to pay marketers to recruit patients to the hospices, knowing that most of those patients had not been referred by their primary care physicians.

Those kickbacks – referred to internally using the code words “girl scout cookies,” amounted to as much as $1,300 per patient, per month that the patient stayed on hospice service.

Patients were often discharged to Sierra’s home health company

Once enrolled, those patients – who were not in fact terminally ill – rarely died, and instead were often discharged at around six months at Sierra’s direction, sometimes to her home health company or the other hospice company.

If convicted, Sierra would face up to 10 years in federal prison for each health care fraud count.

Sierra and Elegado would face up to five years in federal prison for the conspiracy count and up to 10 years in federal prison for each illegal kickback count.