Justices Decline to Review Meaning of ‘Victims’ of Health Fraud

The Supreme Court Monday declined to hear a case challenging how victims are defined when sentencing someone who’s been convicted of health-care fraud.

Mercy Ainabe, a former Texas-area patient recruiter was appealing the nine-year prison sentence she received for defrauding Medicare out of more than $3.6 million from 2011 to 2015 by filing claims for home health services that weren’t necessary or never delivered to patients.

At her sentencing, the trial court applied a two-level enhancement for an offense involving 10 or more victims under the U.S. sentencing guidelines. The court counted an unspecified number of Medicare beneficiaries as victims ...