Dallas City Wire

An internal medicine doctor, Dr. Hector Ubaldo, was convicted last week for accepting over $200,000 in kickbacks for directing patient samples to specific laboratories. This announcement came from U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Leigha Simonton.

Dr. Ubaldo, aged 60, faced indictment in September and was found guilty by a federal jury after a two-day trial. The charges included conspiracy to pay and receive healthcare kickbacks and solicitation and receipt of illegal kickbacks.

During the trial, evidence showed that Dr. Ubaldo received cash from "marketers" in exchange for sending patients' blood and urine samples to certain labs such as R.K. Clinical. These labs then billed insurance companies and Medicare for diagnostic tests.

Dr. Ubaldo had entered into fraudulent medical advisory agreements with these labs and marketers, ostensibly providing advisory services for a monthly fee. However, these services were never needed or provided; instead, the agreements served as a cover to channel kickback payments to Dr. Ubaldo.

On several occasions, a marketer met Dr. Ubaldo at his office to deliver cash payments. Video recordings of these meetings were presented as evidence during the trial.

In one meeting, Dr. Ubaldo expressed his need for cash: “To tell you the truth, I need the cash,” he said to the marketer. He further stated his minimum requirement: “The minimum I’m willing to [expletive] take on a monthly basis is about $10 grand.”

Throughout this scheme, Dr. Ubaldo accepted more than $253,000 in bribes while enabling the lab to bill insurers approximately $3.4 million due to their illicit arrangement.

Dr. Ubaldo now faces up to 15 years in federal prison—five years for conspiracy and ten years for solicitation and receipt of illegal kickbacks—and has been taken into custody pending sentencing.

The marketer involved pleaded guilty before trial to one count of conspiracy related to healthcare kickbacks and faces up to five years in federal prison. Kelly Nelson, owner of R.K Clinical who also pleaded guilty before trial, received a sentence of 30 months in federal prison back in May.

This case is part of a broader prosecution effort by the Northern District of Texas against over fifteen doctors, marketers, and lab owners linked to similar schemes over recent years.

The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Dallas Field Office along with the Defense Criminal Investigative Service. Assistant U.S. Attorneys P.J. Meitl and Nancy Larson prosecuted the case under the supervision of U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman.