How Scott and Ara Larocque got rich from their medical bill dispute

They met at a party in Las Vegas where music was playing. Recently divorced Alla Kosova asked her friend to choose a new husband, leading the stranger through the crowd.

The next day, just before their first date, Scott Larocque, an entrepreneur visiting from Texas, rushed to the Bellagio to exchange his $20 shirt for a Giorgio Armani shirt. Ara came to pick him up in a Ferrari.

Now, 13 years later, a vast mansion, a private jet, and a five-day Italian wedding later, Ara and Scott Larocque are living in luxury. It’s all funded by their long-term strategy of squeezing as much money as possible out of the health care system.

Although they portray themselves as Robin Hood-like heroes who help doctors buy big insurance policies, their stories are emblematic of an American health care system rife with profit-seekers and critics say repeatedly test the boundaries of legality. Lawmakers’ efforts to curb the overreach have been hit by a new tactic.

The LaRock family owns a little-known brokerage called HaloMD, which helps providers navigate the new federal arbitration process for resolving claims disputes with insurance companies. HaloMD is fighting a lawsuit from four Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance companies that accuse it of manipulating the system and causing huge payouts for itself and its provider customers.

Although the Larocques vigorously deny the allegations in the lawsuit, one fact is not in dispute. That means HaloMD controls the process, which was established under a 2020 federal law that prohibits surprise charges by out-of-network providers. The company boasts that it filed more arbitration cases than any other company in the first half of 2025 and generates more than $1 billion in annual revenue for itself and its customers. While not the only company using the law to its advantage, HaloMD dwarfs larger, more established groups with similar activities. Together, they erode the law’s goal of protecting people from high medical costs.

STAT Plus: Inside the research machine that helps UnitedHealth protect Medicare interests.

Court filings, internal documents and interviews with more than 50 people reveal how the Larocque family amassed a fortune based on a series of arrangements with health care providers, and how they evolved over time to avoid legal scrutiny and, more recently, take advantage of new loopholes. STAT’s investigation exposed a long-standing practice of using creative arrangements to share revenue from medical services with its own physicians, and said the sources of the arrangements were unethical and potentially illegal.

STAT+ exclusive story