Nita Palma and Percy Abrams have been found guilty of paying and receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal kickbacks for patient referrals that resulted in the submission of about $3.2 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare for purported hospice care. According to trial evidence, while Palma was excluded from Medicare, she purchased Magnolia Gardens Hospice and paid “marketers,” including Abrams, hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal kickbacks for patient referrals. Many of the patients that were billed to Medicare did not know they were signed up for hospice, and some patients only found out after they were denied medical coverage for services they needed. Read a story from the Long Beach Post and a Department of Justice press release.