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Texas Attorney General Indicts Orthodontist for Health Care Law Fraud in State and Federal Probe
Dr. Michael David Goodwin, 63, an orthodontist who practices in Amarillo, Texas, and Crown Point, Indiana, has been charged in a federal indictment with 11 counts of health care fraud, alleging that he defrauded the Texas Medicaid program of approximately $1.5 million, announced U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas.
According to the indictment that was returned by a federal grand jury today, approximately 90 to 95 percent of Goodwin’s orthodontics’ patients were Medicaid beneficiaries. The Texas Medicaid program provides orthodontic services for Medicaid beneficiaries who fit the following criteria: 1) children who are 12 years old and older with severe handicapping malocclusions; 2) children who are up to 20 years old with cleft palate; or 3) other special medically necessary circumstances, including crossbite therapy and head injury involving severe traumatic deviation.
See on www.oag.state.tx.us
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US Attorney’s Office – W. Dist. MO: Psychologist Pleads Guilty To $1 Million Health Care Fraud
David M. Ketchmark, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced today that a psychologist practicing in the Lebanon, Mo., area pleaded guilty in federal court today to engaging in a $1 million scheme to defraud Medicare and Medicaid.
Rhett E. McCarty, 67, of Lake Ozark, Mo., pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Howard F. Sachs to health care fraud and to forgery.
McCarty is a licensed psychologist and private practitioner who provided psychotherapy services to recipients of both Medicare and Medicaid in their homes in the Lebanon area.
Between Sept. 17, 2008, and April 5, 2012, McCarty submitted Medicare and Medicaid claims for daily or near daily psychotherapy services to 19 beneficiaries for which he was paid $1,276,334. Although McCarty did provide some services for most of these beneficiaries, he admitted that he did not see those beneficiaries more than once a week. McCarty also admitted that, based on an estimate of the services he did provide, the amount he was paid by Medicare and Medicaid for services he did not provide to these 19 beneficiaries was $1 million.
McCarty also admitted that he forged (or caused another person to forge) the signatures of five of the beneficiaries on patient sign-in sheets in order to obtain $418,507 in Medicare and Medicaid payments.
By pleading guilty today, McCarty must forfeit to the government $1 million, which represents the proceeds of the fraud scheme.
See on www.justice.gov
For an aggregation of other articles on Hot Topics in Healthcare Law, go to my magazine on Scoop.it – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law and Regulation and my newspaper on Paper.li – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law.
For an aggregation of other articles on improving healthcare, go to my internet magazine Scoop.it! Changing Health for the Better.
US Attorney’s Office – Idaho: Caldwell Optometrist Pleads Guilty To Defrauding Health Care Benefit Progtams
BOISE – Christopher Card, 59, of Caldwell, Idaho, pled guilty in United States District Court today to a superseding information charging him with one count of executing a scheme to defraud health care benefit programs, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced. Card is a licensed optometrist in Idaho and the former owner, manager and care provider at Total Vision, P.A., in Caldwell.
According to the plea agreement, on various dates between 1993 and August 31, 2010, Card executed a scheme to defraud Idaho Medicaid, Medicare, Blue Cross of Idaho, Regence Blue Shield of Idaho, and the Rail Road Retirement Board (RRB), by making false statements, and by submitting false, fraudulent, and fictitious claims for reimbursement to these health care benefit programs. The total loss to the health care benefit programs and the restitution agreed to by the parties is $1 million.
According to the plea agreement, Card fraudulently billed health care benefit programs, especially Medicaid and Medicare, for false diagnoses, including glaucoma, acquired color deficiency (color blindness), tension headaches, macular degeneration, treatment of eye injuries and removal of foreign objects from the eye. Card billed for testing that did not actually occur and for testing results that were falsified or altered. He admitted that in late October 2008, he altered his fraudulent diagnoses and billing practices when he learned that federal and state health care fraud investigators interviewed a former employee.
According to the plea agreement, 18 patients identified in the original indictment were diagnosed by Card with glaucoma or glaucoma-related conditions. All were subsequently examined by other doctors; only one was determined to actually have the glaucoma or glaucoma related diseases that Card had diagnosed. Card falsely diagnosed the 18th patient, and others, with acquired color deficiency. According to the plea agreement, the patients named in the original indictment were not the only patients for whom Card falsely billed health insurance companies.
See on www.justice.gov
For an aggregation of other articles on Hot Topics in Healthcare Law, go to my magazine on Scoop.it – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law and Regulation and my newspaper on Paper.li – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law.
For an aggregation of other articles on improving healthcare, go to my internet magazine Scoop.it! Changing Health for the Better.
State health initiative in Indiana for poor may be on last legs
The future of a state health insurance program for the working poor is in jeopardy after the federal government granted only a one-year extension for the effort.
The denial puts extra pressure on state lawmakers and the next Indiana governor who must decide next year whether to expand Medicaid, which provides health care for the poor and disabled.
Michael Gargano, Family and Social Services Administration secretary, said Friday he received notification from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services offering to approve a one-year extension for the Healthy Indiana Plan to Dec. 31, 2013.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services did not approve a multiyear extension for the program and declined to respond to the state’s questions about using it to serve Hoosiers who may be eligible under a Medicaid expansion if the state decides to do so in 2014.
See on www.journalgazette.net
For an aggregation of other articles on Hot Topics in Healthcare Law, go to my magazine on Scoop.it – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law and Regulation and my newspaper on Paper.li – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law.
For an aggregation of other articles on improving healthcare, go to my internet magazine Scoop.it! Changing Health for the Better.
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