New York Catches A Medicare Fraud Scheme

When reading this press release, change "Medicare" to "Medicaid" and replace "physical" with "individual or group". Then, you will have the actual makings of a child welfare fraud scheme.

See, in foster care, the legal guardian is the state, so the state authorizes all Medicaid services provided to the child. The kiddy kickbacks come in the form of extended lengths of stay in foster care and the small stipend of adoption bonuses.

Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Brooklyn Physical Therapy Clinic Executive and Three Employees Charged in Health Care Fraud Scheme

 

Four Brooklyn, N.Y.-area residents have been charged in connection with a health care fraud scheme operated out of the Solstice Wellness Center, a Brooklyn-area clinic that purported to specialize in providing physical therapy and various diagnostic tests, announced the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services (HHS).

Solstice executive Dmitry Shteyman, 35, and Solstice employees Aleksey Shteyman, 41; Maxsim Shvedkin, 38; and Sara Kalantarov, 22, were each charged in an indictment unsealed today in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of New York, with conspiracy to defraud the United States, to submit and cause the submission of false claims and to pay health care kickbacks. In addition, Dmitry Shteyman, Aleksey Shteyman and Shvedkin were each indicted on one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and 16 counts of health care fraud. Dmitry Shteyman, Shvedkin and Kalantarov were arrested today in the Eastern District of New York. Aleksey Shteyman remains at large.

According to the indictment, Dmitry Shteyman was the chief operating officer and vice president of Solstice, Aleksey Shteyman was a consultant at Solstice, Shvedkin assisted in the recruitment of Medicare beneficiaries at Solstice, and Kalantarov was an employee at Solstice who worked at the front desk. All four individuals are alleged to have been involved in paying cash kickbacks to Medicare beneficiaries to induce those beneficiaries to be transported to and from Solstice, to purportedly receive physicians’ services, physical therapy and diagnostic tests. The false and fraudulent claims that were submitted to Medicare were for services that were not actually rendered and that were not medically necessary...more