Tampa man sentenced to more than five years for bilking Medicaid out of $2.2M

A Tampa man has been sentenced to more than five years in federal prison and will have to forfeit more than $2.2 million and a home after pleading guilty to bilking Medicaid and lying on tax returns.

Joshua Maywalt, 42, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Mary S. Scriven after pleading guilty Dec. 1, 2021, for committing health care fraud, aggravated identity theft, filing a false tax return and failing to file an income tax return.

“Joshua Maywalt had no concern for anyone except himself,” says Brian Payne, a special agent in charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Tampa field office. “He exploited the personal information of medical patients, fraudulently billed services on behalf of a local physician and then cheated the U.S. tax system for his own personal gain.”

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Tampa man was working as a medical biller for an unnamed Clearwater company providing credentialing and medical billing services for health care providers. In his position, Mayway had access to patient information as well as information for the provider.

He was assigned to work on an unnamed doctor’s account and tasked with submitting claims to the Florida Medicaid HMO for the doctor's Medicaid patients.

Maywalt then began to file false claims using patient information and the doctor’s name and identification number, billing Medicaid for services that were never rendered. 

He then changed the “pay to” information so payments for the false claims went to a bank account under his control rather than the provider’s.

Then, when Maywalt filed his 2019 federal income taxes, he only reported wages leaving out the money being deposited in the account. He didn’t file taxes at all in 2017 and 2018.

The justice department did not say how Maywalt was caught. But he was indicted by a federal grand jury Nov. 19, 2019, and was arrested the following day, according to court records.

The scheme, according to the indictment, began as early as February 2017 and ran until October 2018. The indictment also says the $2.2 million and the Tampa home on Northdale Boulevard that are being forfeited were proceeds from the crime.

According to Hillsborough County property records, Maywalt bought the home July 18, 2018, for $292,000.