DALLAS — A Dallas woman faces several years in federal prison and the forfeiture of millions of dollars after pleading guilty to a health care scam involving fraudulent COVID-19 testing.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in the Northern District of Texas announced that 52-year-old Connie Jo Clampitt, who was indicted in December, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiracy to commit health care fraud.
Court documents revealed Clampitt admitted that she and her co-conspirators accessed private patient information from clinics where one of the accused worked as a contract lab technician.
Clampitt and the other defendants then used that information to submit claims to insurance providers for COVID-19 testing, according to court documents. The testing was never performed and the patients were unaware that their information was being used, officials said.
They ended up submitting around $30 million in claims and received more than $7 million in reimbursements for the testing, according to court documents.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said Clampitt faces up to five years in federal prison. She also agreed through the plea deal to a $7.29 million forfeiture money judgment and will have to forfeit items seized during the investigation, including $2.5 million from various bank accounts, two houses, six vehicles and six luxury watches, officials said.
"As the country struggled to cope with a devastating pandemic, this defendant conspired to swindle insurance providers out of millions of dollars," U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton said in a statement. "She exploited the healthcare system when it was at its most vulnerable, indirectly raising healthcare costs for everyday Americans."
