Former Employee Of California’s Mauran Ambulance Pleads Guilty To Medicare Fraud

Acting U.S. Attorney Sandra R. Brown announced Monday a former employee of Southern California-based Mauran Ambulance Inc. and former employee of DaVita Doctors Dialysis pleaded guilty to Medicare fraud.

Judge And JuryFifty-three-year-old Aharon Aron Krkasharyan, former Quality Improvement Coordinator for Mauran Ambulance, conspired with 47-year-old Maria Esponoza, former administrative assistance of DaVita Doctors Dialysis, and others to defraud Medicare of $6.6 million.

Mauran Ambulance provides non-emergency services to Medicare recipients in the greater Los Angeles area. Many of these beneficiaries are dialysis patients. Krkasharyan submitted fraudulent claims to Medicare for ambulance transportation services for people who did not need it from June 2011 and April 2012. He also instructed Mauran medical technicians to conceal the patients’ true medical conditions and altered paperwork to support the claims.

Espinoza received kickbacks in return for referring dialysis patients to Mauran.

The former owner of Mauran, 55-year-old Toros Onik Yeranosian, and the former general manager of Mauran, 57-year-old Oxana Loutesiko, previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud.

In December 2015, 36-year-old Christian Hernandez, the former dispatch supervisor at Mauran, also pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud.

Medicare paid about $3.1 million of the $6.6 million in fraudulent claims related to the scheme.

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