Mike’s Life Insurance Advice

Dr. Ana Alvarez-Jacinto, 54 of Miami is in it deep. The woman was hit with one of the toughest punishments for Medicare fraud – ever. 30 years, to be exact.

The longest anyone has served for Medicare fraud to date is on average, 2.5 years. The judge’s harsh stance follows a Miami Herald series exposing billions in false claims billed to the Medicare insurance program for HIV treatments and medical equipment in South Florida. Since then, Medicare has taken a hard look at irregular billing practices in the home healthcare industry in Miami-Dade.

In October, she was found guilty of writing phony prescriptions at a clinic for HIV patients, lying on the witness stand, falsifying medical records, prescribing unnecessary treatment for hundreds of patients and more.

I’m as much against insurance scamming as the next person, but I’m not sure life in prison is warranted (Alvarez-Jacinto is likely tospend the rest of her life in prison because there’s no parole in the federal system).  Then again, there’s no telling how many patients she harmed while doing this.

What do you think? Is a life sentence fair?