Gainesville medical equipment company owner convicted in $8.6M Medicare fraud scheme

A federal jury convicted a Gainesville woman of taking part in a scheme that submitted more than $8.6 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare for orthotic braces, the U.S. Department of Justice said.Sophie Dufort, 57, owned a durable medical equipment company and managed several others, according to court documents and trial evidence. She conspired with Paula Pirone, 70, of Ocala, and others to bill Medicare for braces using fake doctors’ prescriptions.Prosecutors said the group bought prescriptions from marketing companies that used high-pressure calls to obtain Medicare beneficiaries’ information. Some prescriptions were signed by medical practitioners who had not evaluated the patients; others were forged using doctors’ credentials, according to the evidence presented at trial.The companies shipped braces to beneficiaries and billed Medicare, even though the beneficiaries did not want or need them and had not been examined by a doctor, prosecutors said. A medical expert testified t