Law Commentary - California Edition
Diagnostic Firm Executive Pleads Guilty to Kickback Scheme With Doctors Writing Orders for Unnecessary Brain Scans
A national sales director for a New York healthcare company pleaded guilty recently in a Boston federal court. David Fuhrmann of Port Jefferson, N.Y., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS). The federal law prohibits soliciting paying or receiving any remuneration of any value “to induce or reward referrals or business that is reimbursable by federal healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid.”
Fuhrmann pleaded guilty to conspiring to offer and pay kickbacks to doctors who would order unnecessary brain scans for patients recently.
The IRS-CI, which is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, announced the defendant’s guilty plea. In the IRS-CI statement, the agency said that from “at least” June 2013 to September 2020, “Fuhrmann conspired with others, including two managers for a mobile medical diagnostics company that performed transcranial doppler (TCD) scans, to enter into kickback agreements with various doctors.”
Court documents claimed Fuhrmann and co-conspirators organized their scheme to offer and pay doctors with kickbacks, all connected to the number of TCD ultrasounds the doctors ordered for their patients. Legal documents say that some doctors were paid off with cash while others received checks. TCD ultrasounds are non-invasive tests that show blood flow velocity in major brain arteries via ultrasound waves.
According to the IRS statement and charging documents in the case, the “kickback scheme resulted in fraudulent bills of approximately $70.6 million to Medicare.”
The plaintiff went so far as to create agreements to cover the scam, making it seem like physicians were compensated for use of the company’s resources, including space and more, and not for the number of tests ordered for patients.
“These agreements were shams that hid the true nature of the arrangement of paying per test,” noted the IRS statement.
The conspiracy charge of violating the Anti-Kickback scheme has a maximum prison sentence of five years, with three years of supervised release, plus a $250,000 fine.
Sentencing is determined by a federal judge based on U.S. sentencing guidelines. The sentencing in this case is scheduled to occur on July 10, 2025.
On the official IRS website, the IRS-CI is described as the criminal investigative arm of the IRS responsible for conducting financial crime investigations including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more.
The FBI reports that Health Care Fraud impacts victims and businesses, and leads to billions of dollars in losses annually in the U.S.
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