A Fredericksburg doctor is facing up to a decade behind bars for cooking up a multi-million dollar Medicare fraud, federal authorities announced Friday. David M. Young, 61, was slapped with a conviction for conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and making false statements in an elaborate scheme that falsely billed Medicare for over $70 million, according to a KXAN report.
Young was accused of prescribing unnecessary orthotic braces and genetic tests to more than 13,000 Medicare beneficiaries, and he didn't even bother to see or even talk to most of them, including undercover agents who posed as patients; this scheme netted him roughly $475,000 for his false sign-offs. The details paint a picture of a man who betrayed his Hippocratic oath for a staggering profit, health officials said.
The Department of Justice outlined Young’s misdeeds during the trial, illustrating how he rubber-stamped thousands of medical records and prescriptions that greatly exaggerated the medical necessity for both the braces and the tests. These documents were then utilized by supply companies and labs to fleece Medicare out of more than $70 million in insurance claims.
Following the conviction, Nicole M. Argentieri of the Justice Department stated that the guilty verdict represents a stalwart effort by the feds to cut down on abuse within the health care system; Young's sentencing will be determined at a later date, taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines among other factors. The case was the product of a joint investigation by the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General and the Texas Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, with the prosecution led by the Texas Strike Force of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, which since 2007, has charged thousands of defendants who collectively have billed health care programs to the tune of more than $27 billion.
