Irving man becomes 4th person charged in COVID testing insurance scam
IRVING (CBSNewsTexas.com) – An Irving man is facing up to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to submitting fake insurance claims for COVID-19 testing.
Terrance Barnard, 40, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud, aggravated identity theft and aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft.
Barnard is the fourth person to be charged in this scheme.
Connie Jo Clampitt, 52, William Paul Gray, 50 and Donn Hogg, 37, have also been charged. They will be sentenced in November 2023.
Barnard admitted that he and his co-conspirators accessed private patient information through various clinics where he worked as a lab technician.
On some occasions, he took photos of patient information and stored the images on burner phones. On other occasions, Barnard and one of his co-conspirators accessed confidential electronic medical records to obtain large amounts of patient information at once.
The information they obtained was used to submit claims to insurance providers for COVID-19 testing that was never performed.
The "patients" didn't request COVID-19 testing and weren't aware their information was being used to submit the claims.
Barnard admitted that the "labs" that he and his co-conspirators claimed the testing occurred at were shell entities that were never open as labs. Collectively, the three entities submitted about $30 million in claims and were paid more than $7 million in reimbursements for fake testing.
According to terms of his plea agreement, Barnard has agreed to a $7.29 million forfeiture money judgement and will forfeit a number of items seized during the investigation, including $2.5 million in funds from multiple bank accounts, two homes, six vehicles and six luxury watches.