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After a nearly year-long investigation, seven people working at two different South Florida clinics have been arrested for running insurance scams.
Investigators from the Miami Police Department and the Florida Department of Investigative and Forensic Services’ Bureau of Insurance Fraud raided two clinics in Miami-Dade County, E-Z Medical Center and Health In Motion, on suspicion of paying for patients and fraudulently billing insurance companies.
Capt. Emissael Dias, of the Bureau of Insurance Fraud, told Miami’s 10 News that the clinics had been recruiting people to act as “accident victims” in a scheme to defraud insurers.
“You have an individual who’s known as a runner or an organizer, and they will go out and recruit individuals to participate in these fake or staged accidents,” he said.
Those people then ostensibly received treatment at the clinics. The clinics, in turn, allegedly billed insurers for thousands of dollars in treatments they never actually provided, and all the participants in the scam took a percentage of the proceeds, 10 News reported.
Diaz said everyday policyholders ended up paying for fraud schemes.
“Just in South Florida alone, most of your rates are going to go up 20% to 25% just because of the insurance fraud,” he said.
