Psychiatrist Jose Santeiro, MD, of Miami Lakes, Florida, has been sentenced to 54 months in jail for engaging in a plan that fraudulently billed about $112 million for compound abuse solutions that ended up never presented or had been medically unnecessary, the US Section of Justice (DOJ) has declared.
Santeiro was medical director of two material abuse treatment method facilities the place the fraud transpired: Compass Detox, an inpatient detox and residential facility in Pembroke Pines, and WAR Network LLC (WAR), a similar outpatient cure program in Hallandale Beach front.
In accordance to demo proof, Santeiro and many others admitted people for highly-priced and medically unnecessary detox services immediately after recruiters presented kickbacks to lure them into the packages, and then gave the clients unlawful medication to make sure that they had been admitted to detox at Compass Detox.
He also submitted bogus statements for excessive, medically pointless urinalysis drug checks.
Santeiro and other individuals then licensed the readmission of a main group of individuals who had been shuffled involving Compass Detox and WAR to fraudulently bill for “as considerably as probable, even though the sufferers did not need to have the high priced cure for which they have been consistently admitted,” the DOJ mentioned.
It included that Santeiro gave Compass Detox individuals a “comfort and ease drink” to sedate them so they would keep on being at the facility.
‘Sober Properties Initiative’
The evidence more confirmed that Santeiro permitted his login to be utilised by others to signal electronic medical documents in order to make it show up as if he experienced delivered treatment method himself, when in actuality he experienced not.
Immediately after a 15-working day trial in March 2022, Santeiro was convicted of conspiracy to dedicate health care fraud and wire fraud, as effectively as eight counts of healthcare fraud.
His sentencing is aspect of the DOJ’s “Sober Households Initiative,” which prosecutes defendants who exploit vulnerable people seeking therapy for drug and/or alcohol addiction.
Two other co-defendants, Jonathan and Daniel Markovich, were being convicted in an previously trial in November 2021 and sentenced to 188 months and 97 months in prison, respectively.
In addition, Richard Waserstein, a Florida attorney and co-operator of the two treatment centers, pleaded responsible to just one rely of conspiracy to commit cash laundering and was sentenced to 13 months in prison.
Drew Lieberman, MD, chief medical officer of Compass Detox, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to dedicate healthcare fraud and was sentenced to 13 months in jail.
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