Texas Doctor Faked Illnesses in $118M Healthcare Scam

A Texas rheumatologist is heading to federal prison after defrauding Medicare, Medicaid, and multiple insurers out of more than $118 million, all by convincing hundreds of patients they had chronic, incurable diseases they didn’t actually have.

Dr. Jorge Zamora-Quezada from Mission was sentenced to 10 years behind bars and will serve three more on supervised release. According to the Department of Justice, he also has to forfeit over $28 million, a private jet, a Maserati, and 13 luxury properties, some even outside the U.S.

Diagnosis = money in his pocket.

Zamora-Quezada falsely diagnosed patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The diagnosis allowed him to put patients on powerful, unnecessary treatments, infusions, injections, and MRIs, just so he could bill insurers.

Prosecutors say some of those meds caused irreversible side effects: liver damage, bone necrosis, strokes, and chronic pain so intense that some patients struggled to cook, bathe, or even get out of bed.
One woman testified that her child was treated like a "lab rat." Another said she abandoned her college dreams, convinced she was battling a lifelong illness.

Zamora-Quezada didn’t stop at fake diagnoses, he went so far as to fake ultrasounds, alter records, and even store missing files in a rat-infested barn. He told staff to make the paperwork “appear,” and punished those who didn’t meet quotas.

The DOJ called his actions “depraved,” adding that he manipulated employees on visas, threw things at staff, and ruled his clinics like a dictator.

And for what? Lavish getaways. Fast cars. Private planes.
But now, instead of jet-setting, he’ll be spending the next decade grounded, in a federal cell.