A Las Vegas nurse practitioner is accused of running a $906 million Medicare fraud scheme and spending the proceeds on a Ferrari, an $865,000 necklace, and a vacation home in Hawaii.
The Department of Justice unveiled the case against Marizel Yukee this week as part of its biggest health care fraud takedown in history: 455 people charged across 45 states in connection with more than $6.5 billion in alleged false claims.
Yukee allegedly billed Medicare and TRICARE for $906 million in medically unnecessary wound grafts, of which roughly $297 million was actually paid out, according to the DOJ.
What she’s accused of doing
Yukee ran four mobile wound clinics spread across four states. Prosecutors say the clinics targeted elderly Medicare patients, many of them terminally ill and in hospice care, with amniotic wound allografts they didn’t need.
The allografts, bioengineered tissue used to treat hard-to-heal wounds, are expensive. Prosecutors allege Yukee’s clinics applied them to wounds that weren’t infected, hadn’t been properly treated with conservative care first, or in some cases had already healed. She’s also accused of paying illegal kickbacks to keep the referrals coming.
Where the money allegedly went
Investigators say Yukee used the fraud proceeds to fund a lifestyle that included a $594,000 Ferrari 296 GTS, seven other vehicles, an $865,000 Bulgari necklace, and a home in Hawaii. The government has already seized roughly $35.2 million in assets connected to the case, including the Ferrari and the necklace.
She faces charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and health care fraud, health care fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and receiving illegal kickbacks, along with money laundering charges. As of now these are allegations. Yukee has not been convicted.
One case inside a record-setting crackdown
Yukee’s case is just one piece of a takedown that the DOJ is calling the largest combined federal and state health care fraud effort ever conducted, spanning 56 federal districts and pulling in 50 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units.
Other defendants charged in the same sweep include a Texas doctor accused of billing insurers $89 million for unnecessary cardiovascular screenings on college athletes, and an Arizona executive accused of taking in $1 billion by billing wound grafts at more than $1 million per patient, allegedly using the money for multiple homes, luxury cars, and a hotel project in the Philippines.
The wound-care angle keeps showing up across these cases, which prosecutors say points to a pattern: expensive, billable medical products applied to elderly and vulnerable patients who are in no position to question the treatment.
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If the allegations hold up, Yukee’s Ferrari and necklace will end up being two of the more expensive props in a much bigger story about how easy it apparently still is to bill Medicare for things that never should have happened.
