Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson - Community Resources & Updates

 

Dear Neighbor,

Thank you for joining us for another week in review.

We held an information session last week in partnership with the NYC Department for the Aging and other organizations to share resources on wills, deeds, pre-end-of-life planning, health proxies, and more, to better equip our residents with the tools to make decisions for themselves and their families. We believe it is never too early to start planning for the future and to ensure your loved ones are taken care of.

In partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of NYC, we are calling on our Bronx residents to enlist as mentors! Over 900 youth citywide apply to have a mentor every year and more than 38% of them hail from the Bronx. As a mentor, you are helping to transform a young person’s life and mentoring a future leader of our borough. You can click here for more information!

Lastly, a reminder that our Community Board application is live, and we are urging Bronxites to apply now to join their local community board!  We fulfilled a promise last year to create a digital application in English and Spanish to make the process easier and more accessible so our community boards can truly reflect the diversity of our borough. You will get to advocate for the needs of your community and hear directly from city agencies. Click here to apply!

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact our office at 718-590-3500 or email us at webmail@bronxbp.nyc.gov.

 

In partnership,

Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson

Grateful to support an amazing investment at the Bronx International High School. We believe in the importance of Work-Based Learning and CTE classes. Proud to have allocated one million dollars to support the creation of a wood shop classroom for our scholars. Congrats BIHS! 

Last week, I attended Mayor Adams’ State of the City address, where he outlined a bold vision for what our city can become over the next year. We have many important projects on our agenda this year, including: 

 Reimagining the Kingsbridge Armory 

Investments in our parks and open spaces

The Metro-North Penn Access Project 

The Hip-Hop Museum 

The Hunts Point Food Distribution Center 

and so much more. 

It is important for us to come together to ensure that these projects work for our communities.

Our LGBTQIA+ Task Force is back! Thank you to our members who joined us for our first meeting of the year. We look forward to continuing our work to advocate on behalf of our LGBTQIA+ community in the Bronx.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Fire Safety Education workshops in partnership with the FDNY and our community partners. We must continue to get this potentially life-saving information out to our residents and families. 

ICYMI

Thank you to everyone who watched our first Ask the BP of the year. Click here for the full segment.

UPCOMING EVENTS       

Serial Health Care Fraudster Sentenced for $234M Medicare Fraud Scheme

 

A California man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiring to conceal his involvement in operating a laboratory and billing Medicare approximately $234 million for various lab tests, including COVID-19 and respiratory pathogen panel tests, despite his decades-long exclusion from the Medicare program.

“Criminals who cheat federal health programs and profit at the expense of American taxpayers will be met with the full force of the Justice Department,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “As our country was battling the COVID-19 pandemic, this individual was fraudulently billing Medicare for hundreds of millions of dollars. Thanks to the work of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, he will now spend 10 years in federal prison for his crimes. We will continue to disrupt schemes that defraud the federal health programs the American people rely on, and we will hold accountable those who perpetrate those schemes.”

According to court documents, Imran Shams, 65, of Glendale, was convicted of Medicare and Medicaid fraud in separate 1990 and 2001 cases in New York and California, respectively. After each conviction, he was excluded from participation in Medicare and all federal health care programs, and advised by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) that he had to submit a written application to be considered for reinstatement in federal health care programs. Shams never sought reinstatement, yet he continued to operate health care clinics in New York that billed federal health care programs. In November 2017, Shams pleaded guilty to conspiracy to pay and receive health care kickbacks and other charges in the Eastern District of New York related to his operation of these clinics.

By 2018, Shams was an owner, operator, and manager of Matias Clinical Laboratory, doing business as Health Care Providers Laboratory (HCPL), a Baldwin Park, California-based clinical testing laboratory that billed Medicare and other federal health care programs. In order to maintain HCPL’s status as a Medicare provider and enable it to receive payments from Medicare for its testing services, Shams and a co-conspirator fraudulently concealed Shams’ role in HCPL from Medicare, including failing to submit required enrollment documentation identifying Shams’ ownership, management position, and prior convictions; causing the submission of false documentation to Medicare identifying another person as HCPL’s sole owner and managing officer; submitting false documentation concerning HCPL’s ownership and management to the California Department of Public Health; and making false statements to the U.S. Probation Office and Pretrial Services Agency while Shams was on federal court supervision following his 2017 conviction. Between August 2018 and April 2022, when the grand jury returned the indictment in this case and Shams was arrested and ordered detained without bond, HCPL fraudulently billed Medicare approximately $234 million. Medicare paid HCPL approximately $31.7 million based on these fraudulent claims.

Shams pleaded guilty in the Central District of California on Jan. 24, 2023, to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and concealment of his exclusion from Medicare.

In addition to the term of imprisonment, Shams was ordered to forfeit $31,761,286.21, including $4,513,106.30 in funds that the government previously seized from two bank accounts, as well as his interest in two residential properties and one business property in the Los Angeles area. Shams was also ordered to pay $31,761,286.21 in restitution.

“Shams engaged in a years-long scheme in which he billed American taxpayers nearly $234 million and lined his pockets with millions of dollars of funds intended for the health and welfare of patients,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “This case demonstrates the FBI’s commitment to rooting out fraud to help ensure critical healthcare funds go where they are needed most.”

“The integrity of the federal health care system rests, in part, on providers’ proper, lawful billing of Medicare and other HHS programs,” said Inspector General Christi A. Grimm of HHS-OIG. “Providers who violate federal health care law and defy measures intended to protect programs and patients from fraud will be held accountable. We remain steadfast and persistent in our efforts to investigate schemes targeting federal health care programs.”

The FBI Los Angeles Field Office and HHS-OIG investigated the case.

The Fraud Section leads the Criminal Division’s efforts to combat health care fraud through the Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program. Since March 2007, this program, currently comprised of nine strike forces operating in 27 federal districts, has charged more than 5,400 defendants who collectively have billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $27 billion. In addition, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with HHS-OIG, are taking steps to hold providers accountable for their involvement in health care fraud schemes. More information can be found at www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/health-care-fraud-unit.

Florida Man Arrested For Role In Multimillion-Dollar Medicare Scheme Based On Fraudulent Billing For Durable Medical Equipment

 

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced the arrest of ALAN SWISS on charges of health care fraud and conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute.  SWISS is the third defendant charged, following the arrests in December of co-defendants ERIN FOLEY and TED ALBIN.  As alleged in a four-count Indictment, SWISS ran two medical supply companies that illegally submitted more than $17 million in claims to Medicare, submitting those claims through a Medicare billing company run by FOLEY and ALBIN.  FOLEY and ALBIN are charged with using that billing company to bill Medicare for more than $25 million in fraudulent claims for durable medical equipment (“DME”), on which Medicare and related private insurers paid out more than $9 million.

SWISS was presented before U.S. Magistrate Judge William Matthewman in West Palm Beach, Florida, and ordered to appear again in the West Palm Beach federal courthouse on February 5 for a removal hearing.  In Manhattan, the case is assigned to U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “As alleged, the defendants devised a scheme to get rich quick by fraudulently billing Medicare, a taxpayer-funded service, for medical equipment.  Their alleged scheme bilked taxpayers of millions of dollars, and fraudulent practices such as this can drive up the cost of health care for everyone.  Close watch for fraud must be paid to our taxpayer-funded programs to ensure fairness for all Americans who rely on these critical systems for medical care.”

According to statements made in court and publicly filed documents in this case:[1]

From approximately 2016 through April 2019, SWISS operated Tropical Medical Marketing, Inc., a call center which cold-called Medicare beneficiaries and used their personal and medical information without the beneficiaries’ knowledge or consent to prepare orders for DME.  SWISS then sold these DME orders to co-conspirators who illegally obtained purported signatures or “authorizations” of health care providers so that fraudulent claims could be submitted to Medicare for reimbursement.

From approximately 2017 through April 2019, SWISS also operated two DME supply companies: Modern Medical Equipment, Inc., which SWISS used primarily to bill Medicare directly under Medicare Part B, and A&E Medical, Inc., which SWISS used primarily to bill private insurance companies under Medicare Part C, also known as “Medicare Advantage.”  To obtain the DME orders that SWISS used to support his unlawful claims to Medicare, SWISS used two unlawful methods: (i) purchasing such orders outright, and (ii) using patient information that SWISS had generated through his call center and purchasing the purported signatures or authorizations of health care providers.  SWISS caused the two DME supply companies that he controlled to submit claims to Medicare for more than $17 million — through the billing company operated by FOLEY and SWISS — on which Medicare paid out nearly $5 million.

FOLEY and ALBIN owned and controlled Grapevine Professional Services, Inc. (“Grapevine”), a billing company that they used to bill Medicare for more than $25 million, and to collect more than $9 million, through claims based on orders for DME that had been unlawfully sold and bought.  Most of these unlawful purchases of DME orders were by Grapevine customers that were registered with Medicare as DME supply companies.  Additional unlawful purchases were made directly by FOLEY and ALBIN through three DME supply companies that they themselves owned and controlled.  Once these DME orders were unlawfully purchased, FOLEY and ALBIN used those orders as the basis for fraudulent claims to Medicare and to private insurers covered by Medicare Part C.  Approximately 70% of the fraudulent billing submitted by Grapevine came from the two DME supply companies controlled by SWISS. 

In addition, FOLEY and ALBIN acted as brokers of DME orders, introducing Grapevine customers who wished illegally to buy DME orders to co-conspirators who illegally sold them orders.  In return for such introductions of buyers to sellers, FOLEY and ALBIN received additional kickbacks, both in the form of cash and in the form of additional DME orders.  FOLEY and ALBIN also profited through these introductions by gaining additional illegal billing business for Grapevine.  Following these introductions, FOLEY and ALBIN continued to oversee the relations between buyers and sellers of DME orders, for example by tracking how many orders particular sellers owed to particular buyers.

SWISS, 51, of West Palm Beach County, Florida, is charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; health care fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison; wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; and conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. 

The maximum potential penalties are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the judge.

Mr. Williams praised the outstanding investigative work of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General.

The charges contained in the Indictment are merely allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

[1] The Indictment and the description of the Indictment set forth herein constitute only allegations, and every fact described should be treated as an allegation.

Late Payment of Contracts by City Agencies Remains a Large and Growing Problem, Comptroller’s Annual Contracts Summary Report Finds

 

New FY 2023 report on procurement: two-thirds of all contracts were submitted late for registration

The New York City Comptroller’s office published its annual report on the City’s contracting in fiscal year 2023, providing a detailed overview by procurement type, method and agency. The report also reviews trends in procurement, including the longstanding and growing problem of City agencies submitting contracts late for registration.

According to the Annual Contracts Summary Report, the City entered into 12,820 new procurement and revenue contracts in FY 2023, valued at $38.22 billion – more than budgets of 30 states. The report provides a transparent and detailed snapshot of that contracting activity, including information on what agencies have been purchasing, what procurement methods they are utilizing, the 10 largest contracts, real property transactions, contact modifications, purchase orders, and more.

The percentage of contracts registered late (i.e. after the start date on which the vendor was expected to begin providing services) grew from 52% in FY21 and FY22 to 66% in FY23, and to 77% for the first half of FY24. These delays cause vendors to wait longer for payment and particularly hurt nonprofits, human service providers, and Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises (M/WBEs).

“We expect our vendors to provide services on time, so we should pay them on time,” said Comptroller Brad Lander. “It’s especially egregious that our non-profit human service providers – who provide meals to home-bound seniors, shelter for homeless New Yorkers, child care for our kids, and so much more – and our minority and women-owned businesses (M/WBEs) wait so many months, many of them even more than a year, just to get paid for services they provided long ago. Speeding up the contracting process is necessary to help New Yorkers benefit from efficient and effective City services.”

For the first half of FY24, human services agencies delayed the registration of contracts containing over 95% of the total contract value for nonprofit organization and human service providers, a significant increase from prior years. Agencies submitted many of these contracts for registration extremely late. In FY23, more than 27% (1,218) of the City’s contracts with non-profit vendors were registered six months to one year late and 31% (1,388 contracts) more than a year late, due to late submissions by agencies.

Late registration is a problem for M/WBEs as well. The largest share of M/WBE procurement contracts used the M/WBE Noncompetitive Small Purchase (NCSP) method, which the City designed to reduce delays in the contracting process by allowing agencies to contract with City-certified M/WBE vendors for up to $1.5 million without competition. However, the large majority of contracts registered via the M/WBE NCSP method were still late.

For years, the City’s onerous procurement process caused considerable registration delays that hinder the ability of many of its vendors to get paid on time. The current Mayoral and Comptroller administrations created the Joint Task Force to Get Non-Profits Paid on Time and the Capital Reform Task Force in 2022 to develop critical reforms to components of contracting systems. Both task forces made meaningful progress over the past two years, including the “Clear the Backlog” initiative in the summer of 2022, an Expanded Work Allowance to allow modifications to be made to existing contracts without requiring lengthy contract amendments, and an initiative with the City Council to make discretionary award contracts multi-year.

Unfortunately, some of the Joint Task Force’s proposed reforms stalled. Most critically, the Task Force has yet to establish timeframes and key performance indicators for the procurement process as promised. City Hall originally committed to launch ContractStat, a performance management and transparent reporting system by June 2023, but has yet to launch it. Without this key accountability tool, the City cannot collectively measure ongoing improvement of the contracting process.

“This year’s report is a window into where the major gaps in the procurement process are,” said Charlette Hamamgian, Deputy Comptroller for Contracts and Procurement, who leads the work of the Comptroller’s office on contracting. “When approving contracts, our team prioritizes transparency and equity, seeking reliability and accountability for the delivery of quality goods and services that directly benefit New York City’s local businesses and residents.”

Under the New York City Charter, the Comptroller’s office is responsible for reviewing and approving most City contracts and agreements entered into by City agencies before they are legally effective and payments can be made. Once a contract arrives at the Comptroller’s office for registration, the office has up to 30 days to ensure that appropriate funds exist for the City to pay the vendors, confirm that the City agency followed the procurement rules, and to verify that there was no corruption in the decision-making process. The Comptroller’s office is currently the only City entity with a time limit proscribed by law in the City’s procurement process.

In addition to the Annual Contracts Summary Report, which is required by law, the Comptroller’s office has provided an array of information about City contracts:

• In response to the growing use of emergency procurement in recent years, in response to the Covid-19 emergency and the growing need for shelter and services for people seeking asylum, the office recently published “Rethinking Emergency Procurements; A Roadmap to Efficiency and Accountability.” 
• On a regular basis, the office is updating a publicly available database of contracts for asylum-seeker services. 
• The Comptroller’s award-winning Checkbook NYC offers a searchable database of information on City contracts. 
• Last fall, the office released a Contract Primer on NYC Contracting. The Primer contains useful descriptions of many of the contract categories, solicitation methods, and contracting processes that are discussed in this Report.  
• In February, the office releases its annual report on M/WBE procurement, highlighting trends in the City’s efforts to make sure agencies are contracting fairly and inclusively. Read last year’s report here.

You can read the Annual Summary of Contracts Report here. 

Governor Hochul Calls on U.S. Supreme Court to Protect Access to Abortion Medication Mifepristone

Governors of the Reproductive Freedom Alliance Urge Court to Recognize FDA Expertise, Longstanding Authority to Determine Safety of Medications

Governor Hochul Stockpiled a Five-Year Supply of Abortion Medication Misoprostol, Signed Law Protecting Telehealth Reproductive Services, and Allocated $35 Million to Abortion Providers After Overturning of ‘Roe’

Governor Kathy Hochul today joined fellow Governors of the Reproductive Freedom Alliance in filing an amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court in the case of Food and Drug Administration, et al., v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, arguing that, if the Court allows a Fifth Circuit decision on abortion medication to stand, it could undermine states’ rights to provide adequate healthcare services, and could have far-reaching implications for both residents as well as the scientific authority of the federal Food and Drug Administration.

“Following the Fifth Circuit decision limiting mifepristone — a safe and effective abortion medication utilized for two decades — the Health Department acted quickly to ensure abortion access remained available throughout the state,” said Governor Hochul. “I join fellow Governors throughout the nation in demanding an end to the harmful politicizing of reproductive healthcare, and call on the Court to recognize the longstanding, independent scientific authority of the FDA.”

Mifepristone is an abortion medication that has been used by more than five million people since FDA approval, and it is a critical component of reproductive healthcare. The Fifth Circuit’s unprecedented ruling, if unchecked, overrides the agency’s evidence-based scientific approval process, allowing ideological extremists to overrule medical experts and decades of scientific evidence.

In the wake of the leaked Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Governor Hochul led New York State in protecting abortion access, including making a nation-leading $35 million investment to support abortion providers across the state, purchasing a five-year supply of misoprostol and signing laws protecting patients and providers and strengthening access for abortion care through telehealth services. As part of her FY2024 budget, Governor Hochul allocated $100.7 million in new funding to support abortion providers and reproductive health care. Governor Hochul has also stated that if the abortion medication Mifepristone is taken off the market, New York State will commit up to an additional $20 million to providers to support access to other methods of care.

NYGOP Chair Ed Cox calls on Hochul, Democrats to pass state law overturning “How Many Stops Act”

NYGOP Chair Ed Cox released the following statement in response to the New York City Council overriding Mayor Eric Adams’ veto of the “How Many Stops Act:”

“The ‘How Many Stops Act’ makes it harder for New York’s Finest to protect New Yorkers from criminals by burying them in needless paperwork.

“It’s an insult to New Yorkers, who are rightfully feeling less safe thanks to a long list of radical Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies, as well as our ongoing illegal migrant crisis.

 

“Kathy Hochul and the State Legislature should immediately pass legislation overriding this misguided act.”

 

NYC PUBLIC ADVOCATE'S STATEMENT ON THE VETO OVERRIDE VOTES TO BAN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT AND PROMOTE POLICE TRANSPARENCY

 

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams released the following statement after the City Council voted 42-9 to override vetoes of his legislation to ban solitary confinement in city jails and require basic policing transparency.

"These votes are a victory for transparency and public safety in our city, no matter what this administration would like New Yorkers to believe. Because of the advocates, the impacted individuals and families, the Speaker, City Council, and everyone who worked on this legislation, we have taken major steps forward in the difficult work of making our jails and our streets safer. It’s an important day for everyone committed to the hard work of advancing true public safety, made all the harder by a relentless misinformation campaign from this administration. It could take years to undo the damage from an intentional campaign of dishonesty. 

"The How Many Stops Act is a reporting bill. It is not the burden that the administration pretends it is – unless they choose to make it one. But let’s be clear, while the reporting is not as onerous as described, it is necessary and its impact is essential, building on the work of a decade ago and preventing us from going back to the bad old days. This isn’t preventing police work, it’s part of police work. It will help us get basic data on how policing practices are in effect on our streets, and craft public safety policy moving forward. It's clear we need change informed by data, not hysteria. 

"Banning the lasting vestiges of solitary confinement – and the use of isolation to try and change behavior– is a moral and governing imperative. Isolation causes lasting harm, causes recidivism, causes more violence, makes our jails less safe for people on both sides of the bars, and our city less safe. Our law allows for separation, for de-escalation, but not the harm which isolation is universally acknowledged to cause. Instead, it implements programming that might actually improve behavior and outcomes. We cannot keep the status quo of crisis on Rikers, and if we want different results, we have to do something different – but based on what we know can work.

"I sincerely hope that the administration will stop wasting time with misinformation and instead work with us on the most streamlined, effective way to implement these bills. The past several weeks of resources used to obstruct, and ultimately, to absurdly, dishonestly blame these bills for every unsafe incident in our city, have been harmful. We don’t have to guess the impact of how misinformation will work – too many who know better, including the mayor, have been doing it with bail reform for years despite evidence to the contrary — harming public safety discussions, public trust, and public policy in the process. When the public knows what these bills actually do, they support them, and the principles at their core. New Yorkers deserve to be safe and feel safe – these bills only serve to help achieve the first, while any continued misinformation and fear-mongering from the administration will prevent the second. 

"Having seen multiple vetoes overridden in just over two years in office, I hope that the mayor will now recognize the need to collaborate and prioritize true, holistic public safety solutions over politics."

MAYOR ADAMS’ STATEMENT ON PASSAGE OF CITY COUNCIL BILLS THAT WILL MAKE NEW YORK CITY LESS SAFE

 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams today released the following statement after the New York City Council’s votes to override the mayor’s vetoes of Intros. 586-A and 549-A, which would make the city’s streets and jails less safe. The mayor vetoed both bills earlier this month.

 

“When our administration entered office two years ago, crime was up, and confidence was down across the city. During our first month in office, in one week alone, Detectives Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora were murdered, multiple officers were victims of gun violence, and an 11-month-old baby was shot in the head.

 

“Today, New York remains the safest big city in America — and we are getting safer. In 2023, murders were down 12 percent, and shootings were down 25 percent. The Preliminary Mayor’s Management Report will show today that crime was down 3 percent across the major seven categories for the first four months of this fiscal year, and we have continued that trend into the first calendar month of this year. We have also meaningfully improved the conditions in a jail system that was on the brink of collapse two years ago. But the City Council’s votes today may end up undermining all that progress.

 

“These bills will make New Yorkers less safe on the streets, while police officers are forced to fill out additional paperwork rather than focus on helping New Yorkers and strengthening community bonds. Additionally, it will make staff in our jails and those in our custody less safe by impairing our ability to hold those who commit violent acts accountable.

 

“From our law enforcement officers and district attorneys to our faith leaders, from the business community to the editorial boards, and from the Federal Monitor to parents like Yanely Henriquez – who lost her daughter Angellyh to gun violence nearly two years ago – New Yorkers have been clear that they want their officers on the streets and their correction staff to come home to their families at night.

“I have always believed that public safety and justice go hand in hand, and I have fought for both throughout my entire career. I share the City Council’s goal of increasing transparency in government, and our administration has remained at the table to negotiate in good faith throughout this entire process to achieve that mission. But the answer is not to compromise public safety or justice for the victims of violence.

“With these bills set to become law, I remain willing to partner with my colleagues in the City Council to address New Yorkers’ concerns in the period leading up to implementation.”