Fifteen people including a doctor and four chiropractors have been charged with participating in three separate schemes in New York and Long Island to defraud the Medicare and Medicaid programs of more than $23 million, prosecutors say.  

Today’s arrests and searches in New York are part of a nationwide takedown that led to charges against 92 people for their alleged participation in schemes to submit $432 million in fraudulent claims to the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The charges include healthcare fraud,  wire fraud, violations of the anti-kickback statutes, and money laundering, US Attorney General Eric Holder said at a press conference in Washington.

In one of the New York cases, nine people, including the manager and medical director of Cropsey Medical Care PLCC in Brooklyn, are charged with conspiring to defraud the Medicare and Medicaid programs of more than $13 million by submitting fraudulent claims for physical therapy that was not provided or was medically unnecessary, court papers say.

In another New York case, four licensed chiropractors allegedly met patients residing in assisted living facilities, failed to provide chiropractic services yet submitted $6.4 million in fraudulent billings to the Medicare program.

In the third New York investigation, the office manager of a Queens medical clinic and the owner of an ambulette service received $3 million from Medicare after purporting to provide physical therapy and diagnostic tests to beneficiaries who were paid illegal cash kickbacks to use their medical and ambulette services.

“Millions in fraudulent claims were billed for unnecessary or undelivered services, and those bills are indirectly borne by all taxpayers.  These programs are designed to assist the elderly or indigent, not greedy thieves,“ said FBI Acting Assistant Director in Charge Mary Galligan.