04/01/2015    

PODIATRISTS AND THE LAW

9 NY Doctors Indicted in Medicaid Fraud Using Homeless Patients

 

Nine New York doctors were indicted on Tuesday on charges that they participated in a Medicaid fraud in which homeless people were given free shoes as a way to entice them to be subjected to a raft of unnecessary medical tests and equipment prescriptions. Those tests led to $7 million in false Medicaid and Medicare billings between 2012 and 2014, the Brooklyn district attorney's office charged in an indictment unsealed on Tuesday. 

 

[Video: Sneaker Fraud Press Conference Video Watch on YouTube.] 

 

A total of 23 people were indicted, including podiatrists Benny Ogorek, DPM, Avia Jackson, DPM, Simeon Isaacs, DPM, and Nemaan Ghuman, DPM .according to the indictment and a law enforcement source. After hours of testing, the homeless people received a pair of cheap shoes, the law enforcement source said. 

 

Source: Stephanie Clifford, The New York Times [3/31/15]