A Bisbee business owner could end up spending nearly four years in a federal prison when sentenced later this summer for bilking Medicare out of $1.7 million.
Frances Jones has pleaded guilty to one count of health care fraud related to her company Oxicheck NW LLC, which she operated as a licensed vendor of durable medical equipment such as wheelchairs, walkers, and bath chairs. She admits in a written plea agreement to “knowingly and willfully” engaging in a scheme to defraud Medicare for several years until her arrest in 2018.
“Between at least 2011 and through March 2018, I submitted fraudulent claims to Medicare falsely representing that I had filled prescriptions for durable medical equipment knowing, in fact, that the equipment for which I billed had not been prescribed and had not been provided to the beneficiaries,” the plea agreement states.
Jones, 51, will be sentenced Aug. 10 by Judge Rosemary Marquez at the U.S. District Court in Tucson. Federal guidelines call for Jones to serve 37 to 46 months in prison, but the plea deal negotiated with the U.S. Attorney’s Office gives Marquez discretion to waive a term of incarceration.
The judge cannot waive the $862,762 in restitution Jones admits she owes to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services which administers the Medicare program.
Court records show Jones was arrested in 2018 at her Chandler home after federal agents raided her office in Bisbee. Assets belonging to Jones and the company were seized, including four bank accounts which remained frozen until April when the accounts were liquidated and turned over to the court.
The 55-count indictment against Jones alleged she filed nearly 2,000 fraudulent Medicare claims through her company. Many of the claims listed equipment purportedly prescribed by doctors who actually never treated the named patients.
Jones was also accused of falsifying receipts to make it look like patients obtained medical equipment that was never delivered, and to billing patients for co-payments on items they never ordered.
In her plea, Jones admits she often failed to return calls to patients who were questioning equipment orders or “lied to them” if she did talk to a patient. She even lied to investigators from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office who made a cursory inquiry into Oxicheck’s operations in 2015, according to the plea agreement.
“I made these statements in an effort to cover up my fraudulent scheme,” her plea states.
Jones would have faced a mandatory prison sentence of at least 20 years if convicted at trial of all 55 felonies. Instead, the plea deal calls for 54 counts to be dismissed against her, including charges of aggravated identity theft and making false statements to a federal agency.
Public records show Jones was released from custody on her own recognizance shortly after being arrested and has received court approval to travel to Mexico on several occasions, most recently in March. She remained out of custody pending the August sentencing hearing.