Prison time for another man who ripped off health insurance program for troops
A Travis County man was sentenced Friday to nearly three years in federal prison as part of a $36 million fraud scheme involving the collection of unnecessary lab tests of saliva and urine that were billed to the U.S. military's health care system.
Jody Sheffield pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit health care fraud. Prosecutors say that soldiers in Killeen, where Fort Hood is located, were given $50 Walmart gift cards in exchange for taking part in the drug toxicology and DNA cancer screening tests that were not needed and were "the product of kickbacks" to physicians.
Tricare, the military's health care system, paid for the tests. The samples were sent to Xpress Laboratories in Fort Worth and Progen Labs in Dallas, and Tricare paid almost $5 million for the claims, prosecutors say.
Xpress Laboratories and Progen Lab paid for lab test referrals, and they split the payments with Sheffield and others, court records show.
Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2018/12/14/prison-time-another-man-ripped-health-insurance-program-troops