Cold Calls to Prescriptions for Sale: Operator of Florida Medicare Call Center Sentenced to 42 Months in Manhattan

The sentence

On May 30, 2025, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, part of the Department of Justice (DOJ), announced that Alan Swiss, 52, of West Palm Beach County, Florida, had been sentenced to 42 months in prison and three years of supervised release for conspiring to defraud Medicare. He pleaded guilty on January 22, 2025, before U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl, who imposed the sentence.

He was ordered to forfeit $6,650,929.76 and to pay the same amount in restitution to Medicare.

How the call center fit in

As per statements made in court and public filings, as reported by the DOJ:

• From about 2016 through April 2019, Swiss ran a call center called Tropical Medical Marketing, Inc., which cold-called Medicare beneficiaries.
• The call center used beneficiaries' personal and medical information without their knowledge or consent to prepare prescriptions for durable medical equipment (DME).
• Swiss sold those prescriptions to co-conspirators, who illegally got purported signatures or "authorizations" from health care providers so fraudulent claims could be submitted.
• From about 2017 through April 2019, Swiss operated two DME suppliers: Modern Medical Equipment, Inc., which mostly billed Medicare Part B, and A&E Medical, Inc., which mostly billed private insurers under Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage).
• To support his own claims, he bought prescriptions outright and used patient information from his call center, along with purchased provider signatures or authorizations.

In conjunction with a billing company run by co-defendants Erin Foley and Ted Albin, the two suppliers submitted more than $18 million in claims. Medicare paid out nearly $6 million.

The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) investigated.

What makes this case notable

Swiss worked both sides of the market. He generated prescriptions from cold calls and sold them, and he also ran suppliers that billed on prescriptions he bought or produced. He was able to do it all using the beneficiaries' data without their consent. The call center served both as the source of the beneficiary data and the source of the prescriptions.

The bottom line:

A Florida man whose call center cold-called Medicare beneficiaries and turned their information into DME prescriptions without consent was sentenced to 42 months and ordered to forfeit and repay about $6.65 million.

Key takeaways

1. Cold calls produced the prescriptions that drove the scheme.
2. Using beneficiary data without consent was a core part of the conduct.
3. Selling prescriptions to others was part of the crime.
4. Owning both the call center and the suppliers put Swiss on both ends of the fraud.
5. Forfeiture and restitution were each set at $6,650,929.76.