Dr. Toe Myint was sentenced to 72 months in prison for his participation in a conspiracy to defraud Medicare. The U.S. District Court in Detroit also sentenced patient recruiter Terrence Hicks to 40 months in prison for his role in the conspiracy.
On Monday, Chief Judge Gerald E. Rosen ordered Myint and co-defendants to pay more than $3.1 million in restitution. Myint, a resident of the affluent Detroit suburb Bloomfield Hills, will also be serving two years of supervised release following his prison term. Chief Judge Rosen separately ordered Hicks and his co-defendants to pay more than $4.9 million in restitution. In addition, Hicks will serve three years of supervised release following his incarceration.
According to the U.S. Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services (HHS), between Oct. 2006 and March 2007 Myint, Hicks, and fellow conspirators were responsible for more than $4.2 million in false and fraudulent claims that they submitted to Medicare for services provided by Myint at the Sacred Hope Center Inc. Hicks also worked at another related clinic, Xpress Center Inc., which billed an additional $2.3 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare.
Evidence presented at the trial revealed that Myint routinely prescribed medications for patients that they did not need. In many cases, the medications were never provided to patients at all. An investigation discovered that Sacred Hope existed for the sole purpose of creating fraudulent claims for injection and infusion therapy services to be billed to Medicare.
As the only doctor at Sacred Hope, Myint was asked to prescribe particular drugs to patients that clinic owners determined Medicare would reimburse at a high rate. Trial evidence demonstrated that Myint agreed to prescribe these medications even though he knew his patients didn’t need them. Medicare paid more than $3.1 million of these claims.
Medicare beneficiaries were not referred to Sacred Hope or Xpress Center by their primary care physicians, but were instead recruited by Hicks who promised cash kickbacks in exchange for their participation in the scheme. Hicks recruited Medicare beneficiaries in downtown Detroit and drove them to the clinics in the suburbs of Livonia and Southfield. The beneficiaries, in exchange for cash, signed documents indicating that they had received the services billed to Medicare.
To date, 11 defendants have pleaded guilty or have been convicted for their roles in the two fraudulent clinics. Daisy Martinez, an owner of Sacred Hope and Xpress Center, was sentenced in March 2010 to 96 months in prison.
Myint, 56, was convicted by a Detroit jury on Jan. 22, 2010, of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, following a week-long trial. In the last three months, three Michigan-area doctors have been convicted of separate health care fraud offenses as part of Medicare Fraud Strike Force operations in Detroit. Hicks, 43, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud on Dec. 18, 2009.
On Monday, Chief Judge Gerald E. Rosen ordered Myint and co-defendants to pay more than $3.1 million in restitution. Myint, a resident of the affluent Detroit suburb Bloomfield Hills, will also be serving two years of supervised release following his prison term. Chief Judge Rosen separately ordered Hicks and his co-defendants to pay more than $4.9 million in restitution. In addition, Hicks will serve three years of supervised release following his incarceration.
According to the U.S. Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services (HHS), between Oct. 2006 and March 2007 Myint, Hicks, and fellow conspirators were responsible for more than $4.2 million in false and fraudulent claims that they submitted to Medicare for services provided by Myint at the Sacred Hope Center Inc. Hicks also worked at another related clinic, Xpress Center Inc., which billed an additional $2.3 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare.
Evidence presented at the trial revealed that Myint routinely prescribed medications for patients that they did not need. In many cases, the medications were never provided to patients at all. An investigation discovered that Sacred Hope existed for the sole purpose of creating fraudulent claims for injection and infusion therapy services to be billed to Medicare.
As the only doctor at Sacred Hope, Myint was asked to prescribe particular drugs to patients that clinic owners determined Medicare would reimburse at a high rate. Trial evidence demonstrated that Myint agreed to prescribe these medications even though he knew his patients didn’t need them. Medicare paid more than $3.1 million of these claims.
Medicare beneficiaries were not referred to Sacred Hope or Xpress Center by their primary care physicians, but were instead recruited by Hicks who promised cash kickbacks in exchange for their participation in the scheme. Hicks recruited Medicare beneficiaries in downtown Detroit and drove them to the clinics in the suburbs of Livonia and Southfield. The beneficiaries, in exchange for cash, signed documents indicating that they had received the services billed to Medicare.
To date, 11 defendants have pleaded guilty or have been convicted for their roles in the two fraudulent clinics. Daisy Martinez, an owner of Sacred Hope and Xpress Center, was sentenced in March 2010 to 96 months in prison.
Myint, 56, was convicted by a Detroit jury on Jan. 22, 2010, of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, following a week-long trial. In the last three months, three Michigan-area doctors have been convicted of separate health care fraud offenses as part of Medicare Fraud Strike Force operations in Detroit. Hicks, 43, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud on Dec. 18, 2009.
