Tara Rios goes to federal court Monday

State Rep. Tara Rios, D-South Padre Island, will go before a federal magistrate on Monday with hopes that she will be allowed to practice dentistry to Medicaid and Medicare patients, according to her attorney.

Rios, a practicing dentist in Brownsville, was indicted by federal grand jury last month on kickback charges contained in a 22-count indictment alleging health care fraud.
As part of her conditional release, Rios along with her co-defendants were barred from treating Medicaid and Medicare patients and required to maintain or actively seek verifiable employment, court documents state.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Dorina Ramos will decide Rios and her co-defendants’ fate at a hearing set for 3 p.m. in McAllen.

On June 15, a federal grand jury returned a 22-count indictment against Rios and fellow dentists Willis David Egger, of Mission; Reynaldo Casares, of La Joya; Diana Woo Paparelli and Colbert J. Glenn, of Pharr; and oral and maxillofacial surgeon Gary Morgan Schwarz, of McAllen. Two of Shwarz’s employees, Renee L. Thornton, of Sharyland, and Magdalena Garza Cazares, of Edinburg, also were indicted.

Rios, along with Egger, Casares, Paparelli and Glenn, are charged with receiving kickbacks from Schwarz for referring patients to him, according to the indictment.

Schwarz is charged with health care fraud along with attempt and conspiracy to commit mail fraud, according to the indictment. His employees Garza and Thornton are charged with attempt and conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

In requesting that she be allowed to treat Medicaid or Medicare patients, Rios’ attorney Eric Reed, of Houston, argues that of the estimated 2,500 patients that Rios and her associate dentist treat annually, about 80 percent, are low-income Medicaid-eligible patients.

“Prohibiting Dr. Rios from providing care for her patients who rely on Medicaid not only deprives one of the poorest and most underserved areas in the United States from adequate dental care, it also deprives Dr. Rios from maintaining her own employment (as well as the employment of her staff), effectively placing her in violation of (the condition), which requires her to maintain her employment,” Reed contends in documents filed in federal court.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Carolyn Ferko and Casey MacDonald, on the other hand, rebut that the conditions should stand based on the physical safety of the patients that would be referred to and treated by Schwarz and to assure no further economic harm to the community.

The federal prosecutors asked the court to view one of three videos that a confidential source recorded during the government’s investigation in this case. The video was taken of Schwarz and his staff while performing surgeries at Egger’s clinic in Mission on Jan. 14, court documents reflect.

According to the government’s case, Schwarz didn’t have a permit to administer anesthesia at an office other than his own. The video showed Schwarz performing dental surgery while his assistants administered the anesthesia.

Ferko and MacDonald also maintain that the video shows Schwarz and his staff failing to adhere to basic sanitation and sterilization practices.

“It is the government’s theory that these defendants (dentists) were impermissibly motivated by money to refer patients to Defendant Schwarz. Indeed, the more patients they referred the more money they would get,” the federal prosecutors contend in court documents.

They anticipate that the dentists will attempt to describe the payments from Schwarz not as kickbacks or referral fees, but as rent. The government contends that the payments to the dentists from Schwarz represented 15 percent of the money that Schwarz received from Medicaid.