Yesterday, Dr. Henry Geoffrey Watson, based in the Bay Area, was convicted of several charges related to healthcare fraud and a patient referral kickback scheme involving Medicare-funded home health services. This information was confirmed by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Dr. Watson, a licensed doctor, was found guilty of participating in three kickback schemes from 2013 to 2019. He improperly referred Medicare patients to home health agencies such as Amity Home Health Care and others. Case documents, unsealed on September 5, 2019, reveal the widespread nature of the kickback problem within the healthcare industry. The DOJ also highlighted similar convictions of several others, including Amity's CEO Amanda Singh and doctors Bhupinder Bhandari, Zheng Zhang, Gerald Myint, and Juan Posada, who pleaded guilty to Anti-Kickback Statute violations from 2020 to 2022, according to the DOJ report.
HHS-OIG Special Agent in Charge, Steven J. Ryan stressed the impact of such violations saying that: “Violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute harm patients by taking away their choice and by depriving them of a doctor committed to doing what is best for them.
These fraud cases affect more than individual patients: they also strain the healthcare system by inflating costs. Efforts to address corruption in healthcare have been increasing, as corroborated by the numerous recent convictions, cited in the DOJ report.
