Finding the right name for your company can have a significant impact on your success. Elia Torres operated a speech language therapy company named Diversity Talks. Initially, some would take “diversity” to mean that Torres can help all people of socially different identities who have difficulties with communication, eating, drinking and swallowing are welcome to her clinic for treatment, support, and care. But maybe Torres was just explaining to the client the diverse services she offered: speech therapy, facial muscle rehabilitation, and fraud. On October 11, 2024, Torres was sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of a $1 million Medicaid scheme.
Diversity Talk’s patients were mostly children, ranging in age from infant age to young teenagers. According to claims received by Medicaid, these patients received speech language therapy seven days a week, except on certain holidays, for two to five years continuously. They even purportedly received services on weekends. What sounds like speech therapy immersion is actually the warning bells of fraud. Fraudsters don’t work on weekends.
An investigation found many commonalities in Torres’ records. First of which, most of these children did not need speech-language therapy. Regardless, Torres was billing for speech-language services. And most of those services were not rendered. Or couldn’t have been rendered. For example, Medicaid paid her $517,033 for speech therapy services supposedly provided to infants. Furthermore, two families had moved to a different state, and had asked that services end. But Medicaid continued to be billed by Diversity Talks for their services after a year had past.
The Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud and Vulnerable Victims Unit conducted interviews with the parents of these patients. Interestingly, many of these parents did not speak English as their primary language. Desirable to a fraudster who wants any questions of charges to get lost in translation. Despite the language barriers, all parents reported that their child did not receive therapy seven days a week nor received therapy on weekends.
Shout out to the Medicaid Fraud and Vulnerable Victims Unit. Fraud and Vulnerable go hand in hand. Combined resources stopped Torres from committing more fraud.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “Maryland woman sentenced to five years in Medicaid fraud case” published by the Baltimore Sun on October 11, 2024
A Silver Spring woman was sentenced to five years in prison, with all but 18 months suspended, for charges of Medicaid fraud after billing for services that were never provided.
Elia Torres, 44, pleaded guilty on Sept. 30 to billing for juvenile speech-language therapy services that were never provided, defrauding the state’s Medicaid program of more than $1 million, according to a news release from Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown’s Office.
