Amtrak bilked out of $12M by at least 119 employees, doctors in fraud scheme; many still on the job: report

At slightest 119 Amtrak employees and doctors took the railroad institution for a thrust successful a monolithic $12 cardinal wellness fraud scheme, a watchdog found. 

Amtrak's Office of Inspector General (OIG) said employees based successful Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Connecticut and Washington, D.C., accepted currency kickbacks from 3 healthcare providers successful speech for the usage of their security accusation and that of their dependents successful a strategy from 2019 to 2022.

"The sheer measurement of employees who cavalierly participated successful this strategy to bargain Amtrak’s funds suggests not lone a superior lapse successful basal ethics, but a troubling workforce culture, astatine slightest successful the Northeast region, successful which blatant transgression behaviour was someway normalized," said Amtrak Inspector General Kevin H. Winters. 

Fox News Digital has reached retired to Amtrak. 

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Amtrak ran work betwixt Chicago and Florida successful the 1970s.  (Amtrak)

The healthcare providers utilized that worker accusation to record fraudulent and questionable aesculapian claims for services that were ne'er provided oregon not medically necessary, the OIG said. Overall, the taxpayer-funded railroad carrier's wellness program was billed much than $16 cardinal and was bilked retired of $12 million. 

Of the 119 employees implicated, 28 retired oregon resigned arsenic a effect of the OIG’s investigation, and 30 near the institution for "other reasons." Another twelve employees person been criminally charged, and 7 person pleaded blameworthy and are awaiting sentencing.

Sixty-one are inactive connected the job. 

In a connection to Fox News Digital, Amtrak said it has taken "significant steps" to code aesculapian security fraud. 

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An Amtrak bid astatine Penn Station successful New York City.  (Getty Images)

"Like galore employers, Amtrak calls connected aesculapian payment providers and insurers to bash much to place suspicious enactment and halt aesculapian security fraud," the institution said. "Amtrak powerfully condemns this reprehensible enactment that occurred betwixt 2019 and 2022 and is taking swift enactment with each progressive employees progressive successful the investigation. 

"While we proceed to enactment intimately with the OIG to place and stamp retired fraud, we besides proceed to enactment connected different initiatives to code this issue," the connection added. "Amtrak has implemented assorted measures to heighten fraud prevention and empower employees to study suspected wrongdoing. These efforts see expanding oversight and strengthening efforts to destruct fraudulent schemes."

Canceled trains are displayed connected an Amtrak departures committee successful Moynihan Train Hall astatine Penn Station successful New York Dec. 23, 2024.  (Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The OIG launched a probe erstwhile an cause noticed antithetic billing patterns successful reports by information analysts. Three New York healthcare providers with "questionable" billings who shared a precocious fig of Amtrak employees arsenic patients were identified by investigators. 

An undercover cause posing arsenic an Amtrak worker met with Punson Figueroa, aka "Susie," an acupuncturist from Long Island City, New York, June 16, 2021. During the visit, Figueroa told the cause to motion his sanction 30 times for work without dating the signatures, the OIG said. 

Figueroa past submitted alleged fraudulent claims to Amtrak’s healthcare plan, saying the cause had visited providers astatine slightest 7 times successful May 2021 for acupuncture and carnal therapy. The cause visited Figueroa’s bureau again connected July 29, 2021, wherever she allegedly handed him an envelope containing $1,000. 

Figueroa continued to usage the agent’s security accusation to taxable dozens of fraudulent claims to Amtrak’s healthcare plan, investigators said. 

Figueroa pleaded blameworthy to defrauding Amtrak’s healthcare plan, was sentenced to 3 years of supervised merchandise and was ordered to wage restitution of $9.05 million. Two different healthcare providers and a aesculapian biller person besides pleaded blameworthy for their roles successful the scheme.

Authorities successful North Tonawanda said a Niagara-bound Amtrak bid struck a rider conveyance May 17, 2024. (WKBW Buffalo)

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Michael DeNicola, a podiatrist from New York, pleaded blameworthy June 29, 2022, to conspiracy to perpetrate wellness attraction fraud, organisation of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of a gun. He has not yet been sentenced. 

Regina Choi, a aesculapian biller from Woodside, New York, who antecedently worked for Figueroa, pleaded blameworthy to conspiracy to perpetrate wellness attraction fraud June 11, 2024, for submitting mendacious and fraudulent claims to the Amtrak wellness attraction program and paying currency kickbacks to Amtrak employees. Her condemnation is besides pending. 

In 2018 and 2019, OIG auditors issued abstracted reports that said Amtrak could fortify measures to place fraudulent aesculapian claims sooner. Both reports noted billing patterns indicative of imaginable fraud among hundreds of providers, the OIG said.