$205 million medicare fraud goes for 50 years imprisonment

<![CDATA[

A federal judge on Friday sentenced a Miami man who had owned the nation’s largest community mental health center chain to 50 years in prison for his role in a $205 million Medicare fraud scam.

The sentence is the longest ever for a case brought under a Medicare fraud strike force.

Federal authorities said Lawrence Duran, 49, preyed on patients with Alzheimer’s disease and severe dementia, orchestrating an elaborate scam where staff forged patient charts to bill Medicare for therapy sessions and other services it never delivered.

Prosecutors said doctors and employees at American Therapeutic Corp. and its sister companies were instructed to alter diagnoses and medications to make it seem that they qualified for expensive sleep studies and mental health treatments. Patients suffering acute mental illness and on the verge of hospitalization were supposed to get intensive counseling, but federal officials said ATC didn’t provide any.

Ref and Read more: http://hosted2.ap.org/wabcam/fe05ae8b49d04470adabd39cc98df51d/Article_2011-09-16-Medicare%20Fraud/id-94121249ca4842fdbe53ce12b15e1488

]]>