Earlier this month, a New York man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly operating a $26 million scheme to defraud Medicare and Medicaid. The defendant allegedly established 6 medical clinics in Brooklyn that paid elderly people to pose as patients and billed Medicare and Medicaid for unnecessary and/or non-existent medical care and equipment. The defendant, who was not a doctor, operated the six clinics between 2007 and 2013, but because New York’s corporate practice of medicine doctrine requires that such clinics be owned and operated by licensed healthcare professionals, he found three physicians to serve as nominal clinic owners. The allegations included that the physicians would periodically come to the clinic to sign medical charts for patients who they never treated, and for others, prescribe unnecessary medications, procedures and supplies. The clinics allegedly incentivized elderly patients to seek “treatment” at the clinics through cash kickbacks.
In addition to his prison term, the defendant was ordered to pay $16,686,811 in forfeiture and a restitution order of $18,683,691. Although this was an extreme “billing mill” case, the severity of sentencing highlights the importance of billing compliance obligations. Also, since New York law strictly prohibits unlicensed individuals, such as the defendant, from owning medical clinics and/or influencing medical decision making, clinics should ensure that such functions are exclusively reserved to its licensed healthcare providers. The corporate practice of medicine doctrine varies from state to state, so we recommend that you contact a knowledgeable and experienced healthcare attorney in your state if you have any questions regarding these requirements.