The U.S. Department of Justice handed down two indictments involving physicians in the last 30 days.
1. An orthopedic surgeon, a pain management specialist and two attorneys were charged in a $31 million "trip-and-fall" scheme in New York City, according to an Aug. 25 indictment. The indictment charged them with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.
The group allegedly coerced about 400 people to stage trip-and-fall accidents after which the attorneys would file lawsuits. As an incentive, patients would receive $1,000 to $1,500 after they had surgery, the Justice Department said.
2. On Sept. 7, spine surgeon Kingsley Chin, MD, and the CFO of his Malden, Mass.-based device company SpineFrontier were charged in connection with a kickback scheme. Dr. Chin and Aditya Humad allegedly contracted with surgeons and agreed to pay them between $250 and $1,000 per hour for purported consulting.
However, the surgeons were allegedly paid for using SpineFrontier's products, and did little — if any — consulting. The duo allegedly paid each surgeon between $32,625 and $978,000 in bribes.