Mother, daughter who operated pharmacy indicted on health care fraud charges

The two are accused of receiving millions in false Medicare claims, bribing telemedicine companies

A mother and her daughter have been indicted on health care fraud charges after they allegedly received millions in false Medicare claims they filed while operating a pharmacy in Sunrise.

Mirosis Gonzalez, 58, and her daughter Berioska Sosa, 32, who live in South Florida, used the pharmacy they owned and operated, Aviva Care Pharmacy, to submit over

$12 million in false Medicare claims, according to prosecutors, and received payments totaling about

$8.4 million. Between August 2016 and May 2020, Gonzalez and Sosa allegedly paid kickbacks and bribes to at least seven companies, according to the indictment.

The marketing and telemedicine companies recruited patients and referred Medicare beneficiaries and doctors’ orders and prescriptions to Aviva Care Pharmacy and were paid kickbacks and bribes in return, according to prosecutors. The indictment alleges that the companies sent Aviva orders, which the pharmacy accepted, for costly medical equipment and drug prescriptions “without considering medical necessity or Medicare reimbursement eligibility.”

They are accused of disguising the kickbacks and bribes they paid to these companies by saying the payments were for marketing and other services, prosecutors said.

The indictment details some of the claims for Medicare reimbursement allegedly made by Gonzalez and Sosa between April 2018 and March

2020. They included claims totaling over

$4,600 for medical braces used after surgeries and over $21,000 worth of creams and drugs.

Aviva Care Pharmacy paid one of the bribed companies about $5,000 in two payments as a kickback for referring Medicare patients and doctors’ orders to their pharmacy, the indictment said. Another company received two payments totaling $25,000 in kickbacks.

Gonzalez and Sosa are facing charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, health care fraud, conspiracy to pay health care kickbacks, and payment of kickbacks in connection with a federal health care program. Their arraignment is scheduled for Sept. 20 at

10 a.m. in Miami’s federal courthouse.