State Investigating Doctor’s Office, Pharmacy

By LARRY KELLER Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Medicaid fraud investigators with the state Attorney General’s Office have seized medical and prescription-drug records from a doctor’s office in Pahokee and a pharmacy in Belle Glade, but no charges have been filed against either business.

Prescription-drug records were taken from Belle Glade Discount Pharmacy on Oct. 10 after investigator Cleve Boothman stated in an affidavit that the business had dispensed numerous prescriptions for dead people.

Patient and other records were taken Monday from Pahokee Family Medical Center after investigator William Sampson stated in an affidavit that Dr. Kenneth Rivera-Kolb billed Medicaid for medical procedures not performed.

A man identifying himself as the manager of the pharmacy declined to give his name but said nobody has committed Medicaid fraud there.

Investigator Boothman said in his affidavit, however, that between April 8, 2003, and May 20 of this year, the pharmacy filled 63 prescriptions for eight dead Medicaid recipients. The drugs were dispensed from five to 52 days after they died, Boothman said.

One Medicaid recipient was provided seven prescriptions at a total cost of $2,235 after she died in September 2003, according to Boothman. Another got six prescriptions costing $2,130 after his death in September 2004, he said.

At Pahokee Family Medical Center, Rivera-Kolb billed Medicaid for medical tests on four children whose parents or guardians said they had never visited the doctor, according to investigator Sampson. He added that Rivera-Kolb billed Medicaid for at least a dozen ultrasound tests that apparently were never conducted.

The owner of Family Health Center, Nieves Delgado, told him that she was in the process of closing the medical office, Sampson said in his affidavit. Nobody answered the telephone there Thursday.

larry_keller@pbpost.com