The U.S. Justice Department’s Medicare Fraud Strike Force set record numbers for health care prosecutions throughout the Country in Fiscal Year (FY) 2013. The Medicare Fraud Strike Force is a coordinated team of investigators and prosecutors from the Justice Department, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the…
On January 24, 2013, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the State of New Jersey unsealed a $12.5 Million Dollar settlement with Cooper Health System, headquartered in the Camden, New Jersey area, but serving regions of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. The settlement was the result of cardiologist Nicholas DePace’s whistleblower…
On January 15, 2013, Richard Behnan, DPM., a 56 year old podiatrist from Fenton, MI was sentenced by a federal judge to 55 months in prison and ordered to pay over $1.4 million in restitution to Medicare and nearly $200,000 to BCBSM for his participation in a $1.6 million fraudulent…
On December 11, 2012, Hetal Barot, a physical therapy assistant from Westland, Michigan, was sentenced today to serve 30 months in prison followed by 2 years of supervised release after pleading guilty to 1 count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. She was also ordered to pay $1,336,739 in…
On Monday, December 10, 2012, Boris Sachakov, MD, a colorectal surgeon, was sentenced to serve 30 months in prison for Medicare and private insurance fraud for billing for procedures such as hemorrhoidectomies that he never performed. On June 13, 2012, Dr. Sachakov was found guilty by a jury of one…
On June 13, 2012, the California Supreme Court unanimously denied review in the case of California Society of Anesthesiologists v. Superior Court, 204 Cal.App.4th 390 (1st Dist. 2012) ending an over two year battle by the California Society of Anesthesiologists and the California Medical Association who challenged former governor Arnold…
By an order dated March 30, 2012, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan dismissed an antitrust claim brought by the City of Pontiac against Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS), the largest private health insurance provider in Michigan. In the case of City of Pontiac v.…
In an opinion issued March 30, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overturned a $45 million judgment against Tuomey Healthcare System, Inc. (“Tuomey”), a private, nonprofit corporation which owns and operates Tuomey Hospital in Sumter County, South Carolina. A former physician brought a qui tam…
According to a Department of Justice press release, on Thursday March 15, 2012, a man residing in Dearborn Heights, Michigan was charged by Criminal Complaint with health care fraud. 51-year-old Fitzgerald Anthony Hudson was arrested, and could face a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000.…
Until October 2009, physicians could lawfully act as service providers to hospitals by furnishing their services “under arrangements” where a physician or group of physicians would provide services, equipment and supplies to a hospital’s patients by contracting with the hospital to provide the services. Urologists, for instance, regularly furnished lithotripsy…