Chang Ho Lee Pleads Guilty To Medicare Fraud
Dr. Chang Ho Lee pleaded guilty on Feb. 21 of Medicare fraud in a shame in which patients were enticed to his clinic for free massages, facials and food. Lee would then bill them as medical services that were never performed.
Lee operated a clinic where, from March 2007 to May 2012, he supervised the recruiting of phantom patients to get their Medicare numbers. The patients who participated in the scam have not been charged. An investigation found that he wasn’t even in the United States during a stretch of 2012 when he submitted claims to Medicare for physical therapy he supposedly supervised.
Lee is scheduled to be sentenced by United States District Judge Raymond J. Dearie of the Eastern District of New York on June 13, 2014. At sentencing, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and approximately $3.4 million in mandatory restitution.
The case was investigated by the FBI and HHS-OIG and brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, under the supervision of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. The case is being prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorney Nicholas Acker and Trial Attorney Bryan D. Fields from the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section.
Since its inception in March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, now operating in nine cities across the country, has charged more than 1,700 defendants who have collectively billed the Medicare program for more than $5.5 billion. In addition, HHS’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with HHS-OIG, is taking steps to increase accountability and decrease the presence of fraudulent providers.
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