Part B Insider (Multispecialty) Coding Alert
Doctor Gets Nearly 2 Years in Jail for Kickbacks
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Plus: Excluded employee costs this rehab center six figures.
Exchanging wads of cash in unmarked envelopes sounds pretty fishy—and it certainly was for one New Jersey-based physician who was sentenced to 20 months in prison for accepting kickbacks for diagnostic testing referrals.
The doctor was convicted of taking illegal kickbacks in exchange for sending his patients for MRIs, CAT scans and ultrasounds at specific locations. The doctor was recorded accepting thousands of dollars in cash that had been given to him in envelopes. He disguised the payments saying they were rental monies, but no such lease was found to exist.
The imaging companies that paid the doctor were also put under the microscope, and must forfeit over a million dollars in revenue that they accepted from the corrupt referrals. To read more about the case, visit www.justice.gov/usao/nj/Press/files/Onyenso, Chikezie Sentencing PR.html.
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