A Detroit-area doctor has been sentenced to 72 months in prison on charges of defrauding the Medicare program.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge Gerald E. Rosen also ordered Toe Myint, of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., to pay more than $3.1 million in restitution, jointly with co-defendants. Myint was convicted by a Detroit jury on Jan. 22 of one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud.
According to federal investigators, between approximately October 2006 and March 2007, Myint and others caused more than $4.2 million in false and fraudulent claims to be submitted to the Medicare program for services supposedly provided by Myint at Sacred Hope Center, Inc., a supposed infusion clinic. Medicare paid more than $3.1 million of those claims.
According to investigators, Myint routinely prescribed medications for patients at Sacred Hope that they didn't need and, in many cases, weren't given. The clinic, investigators said, existed for the purpose of causing fictitious claims for injection and infusion therapy services to be billed to Medicare.
Medicare beneficiaries were not referred to Sacred Hope by their primary care physicians or for any other legitimate medical purpose, investigators said, but were recruited to come to the clinics in exchange for the payment of cash kickbacks. The beneficiaries were recruited in downtown Detroit and driven to Southfield and Livonia, Mich., where the clinics were located.