A suburban New York City surgeon has been sentenced to spend 13 years in a federal prison for submitting false claims to Medicare. The Long Island doctor was convicted of health care fraud, making false statements related to health care matters and money laundering by a federal jury in a trial that lasted 11 days.
According to prosecutors, the Glen Head surgeon submitted more than $7 million in false claims to the federal program. He was ordered to pay $7,266,008 in restitution, forfeit $7,266,008 and pay an additional $20,000 fine.
The 51-year-old doctor practiced at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center and Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, both in Brooklyn, and at Franklin Hospital in Valley Stream and Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre.
A federal prosecutor said the surgeon “treated Medicare like a personal piggy bank, stealing over $7.2 million by making fraudulent claims for medical procedures he never performed.”
Officials claimed the surgeon billed Medicare for wound debridement and incision-and-drainage procedures he did not perform. He was accused of submitting lists of unperformed procedures to his billing company, which then submitted claims to Medicare. In addition, he claimed that the procedures took place in an operating room so that reimbursement would be greater.
Clearly, punishment for this type of white collar crime can be harsh. It is imperative for those who believe they are under investigation to have effective, aggressive legal representation at every step of the legal process.
For more information, please contact the law offices of Rivas Goldstein, LLP.