One Texas Doctor’s Guilty Plea Confirms $5.5M COVID Fraud

A Tyler, TX doctor has pleaded guilty to his role in a $5.5 million over-the-counter (OTC) COVID-19 test fraud scheme.

Since the pandemic ended, we've heard and reported several stories of people who scammed the government out of millions of dollars taking advantage of the system designed to help small businesses survive during that time.

Law enforcement has been busy wrangling up these scammers and prosecuting them for their crimes including a Tyler doctor who created an elaborate scam involving Medicare.

57-Year Old Mark Mazarre; MD allegedly scammed Medicare out of millions.

According to The Department of Justice, Mazarre purchased Medicare beneficiary identifiers (BINs), a 6-digit code that identifies the insurance company that provides your Medicare drug plan, that were used to bill Medicare millions of dollars for OTC COVID-19 test kits, many of which had not been requested by the beneficiaries.

Mazzare entered into a sham agreement with a purported marketer to conceal the purchase of BINs as “lead packages,” which in reality consisted of BINs and fraudulently generated audio recordings purporting to be the voices of the beneficiaries requesting the OTC COVID-19 tests.

Mazzare caused OTC COVID-19 tests to be shipped to Medicare beneficiaries whose BINs had been purchased, regardless of whether the Medicare beneficiaries had requested or needed the tests.

From or around November 2022 to or around June 2023, Mazzare caused more than $5.5 million in claims to be submitted to Medicare for OTC COVID-19 tests that were medically unnecessary and ineligible for reimbursement. Medicare paid approximately $3.44 million on those claims.

Mazzare pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and to purchase, sell, and distribute Medicare beneficiary identification numbers.

He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. A sentencing hearing will be set at a later date when a federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.