A Phoenix couple pleaded guilty for causing over $1.2 billion of false and fraudulent claims to be submitted to Medicare and other health insurance programs for expensive, medically unnecessary wound grafts that were applied to elderly and terminally ill patients, the Justice Department announced Jan. 31.
The DOJ said Alexandra Gehrke and her husband Jeffrey King conspired with others to orchestrate a massive scheme. Gehrke ran two companies, Apex Medical LLC and Viking Medical Consultants LLC, that contracted with medically untrained “sales representatives” to locate elderly patients, including hospice patients, who had wounds at any stage and order amniotic ...