Ifeanyi Ozoh, 54, has been sentenced to 72 months in federal prison for conspiring to pay and receive health care kickbacks and for making illegal payments to marketers, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas announced today. In addition to his prison sentence, Ozoh was ordered to pay $4.9 million in restitution to Medicaid.
Ozoh was convicted after orchestrating a scheme in which he bribed marketers and parents to bring their Medicaid-insured children to a fraudulent dental clinic, known as Floss. The payments were made to marketers, who received $20 to $100 per Medicaid-insured child referred to the clinic.
The evidence presented during the trial revealed that these kickback payments were often made in secret, with marketers testifying that Ozoh paid them in cash, sometimes placing the money on top of a vending machine in the clinic’s hallway to avoid detection.
A clinic manager testified that she repeatedly warned Ozoh that paying marketers for patient referrals was illegal, but Ozoh continued the practice, paying over $163,000 in bribes. He also received bonuses based on meeting patient referral quotas.
Between 2020 and 2021, Floss billed Medicaid for more than $6 million and received more than $4 million, much of it linked to the kickback arrangements and fraudulent claims for services that were never rendered.
During the trial, a Medicaid representative confirmed that the program prohibits kickback payments for patient referrals, which further solidified the case against Ozoh.
As part of the sentencing, Ozoh was also ordered to pay substantial restitution to Medicaid to compensate for the fraud. Ozoh will be allowed to remain on bond until he voluntarily surrenders to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility, which will be designated soon.
This conviction and sentencing reflect the ongoing efforts to combat fraud in the healthcare industry and protect Medicaid from exploitation. Ozoh’s actions were part of a larger trend of fraudulent schemes that undermine the integrity of healthcare programs meant to serve vulnerable populations.