Ambulance company operations director indicted on federal fraud charges

McALLEN — A federal grand jury has indicted the former operations director of A-Care EMS Inc. on charges that he sent fraudulent claims to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to pull in more money.

The indictment, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, claims Rodney Lee Ramos, 34, of Weslaco, instructed emergency medical technicians to transport patients for dialysis who were not confined to bed.

Ramos was the ambulance company’s director of operations until April 25. He also is accused of instructing the technicians not to report that dialysis patients they transported were able to sit in a wheelchair or could walk.

Medicare covers scheduled, non-emergency ambulance services if patients are unable to get up from bed without assistance, walk on their own or sit in a chair or wheelchair, or if the patients’ medical conditions require them to be taken for treatment via ambulance.

Ramos denied any wrongdoing and referred questions on the case to his attorney, Sergio Valdez. Calls made to Valdez’s office Friday were not returned.

According to the indictment, Ramos worked as an EMT coordinator for A-Stat Ambulance Services Inc., which was owned by Guadalupe Garces Jr. and Araceli Garces. Medicaid and Medicare placed a vendor hold on that ambulance provider — withholding payment to the company — after federal agents determined that the owners were defrauding the federal and state health insurance programs.

On Nov. 30, 2004, Ramos, acting as director of A-Care EMS, submitted a provider license application to the Texas Department of State Health Services. In December that year, the son of the owners of A-Stat Ambulance Services incorporated A-Care EMS, according to the indictment.

The indictment also alleges that Ramos operated A-Care EMS under the direction of the Garceses and took part in a scheme to defraud Medicare and Medicaid.

According to the indictment, Ramos also created a software program that contained sample run sheets for each dialysis patient that the technicians were to use in preparing run sheets.

The sheets included patients’ medical history, condition and justification for ambulance transportation. He also is accused of telling technicians that Medicare would not pay the claim if they wrote that the patient was able to sit in a wheelchair or walk.