Tennessee Physician Sentenced in $1.88 Million Health Fraud Case

A Tennessee doctor will have 7 years in federal prison to contemplate his crimes against the Medicare program and his patients. 

He was convicted on a 36-count indictment in the following scheme, as described by the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee:

The defendant, through his medical clinic in Clarksville, billed federal health insurance programs for hundreds of medically unnecessary services, including unnecessary office visits and steroid injections. The evidence at trial showed that he required Medicare beneficiaries and other patients to visit his clinic as many as six times each month and to undergo unnecessary steroid injections in order to obtain their prescriptions. The evidence also showed that the defendant altered progress visit notes in his patients’ medical records to justify higher billing rates.

The physician was ordered to pay over $1 million in restitution and serve three years of supervised release.  He was also fined $195,000 and must forfeit previously seized assets worth approximately $900,000.

This isn't the physician's first encounter with the legal system. In 2022 the Administrator of DEA revoked his authorization to prescribe controlled substances, based upon findings that he indiscriminately and dangerously prescribed large amounts of oxycodone and other controlled substances. See Fed. Reg., Jan. 19, 2022, at 2986. 

Health care fraud is as health care fraud does.