Man used doctor’s identity to submit fake claims

TRENTON » A Florida man has been charged with assuming a New Jersey doctor’s identity to submit more than $1 million in fraudulent medical claims for services purportedly rendered at a medical center that didn’t exist.

Yoandi Marrero, a 33-year-old Hialeah resident, and PA Clinical Center — the registered company he allegedly used to front the phantom medical practice — are charged with insurance fraud, theft by deception, attempted theft by deception and identity theft in an indictment Wednesday by a state grand jury. Marrero also faces a second identity theft count.

The New Jersey Attorney General’s office said Marrero used the personal information of a family physician to submit the fraudulent claims to an insurer. They involved a variety of physical therapy and medical services including X-rays, ultrasound therapy and electrical stimulation that purportedly were provided to more than a dozen clinical center patients.

Prosecutors said neither the doctor nor the patients had ever been to the center, whose listed address is the site of an unoccupied storage unit.

Marrero allegedly received more than $46,000 in payments from the insurer through the scheme. It had been uncovered when a woman claimed a doctor had billed her insurance for services that were never rendered.

Marrero could face several decades in prison if convicted on all counts. It wasn’t known Wednesday if he had an attorney.