Fort Lauderdale, Florida-Area Halfway House Operator Sentenced to 33 Months in Prison for Participating in Fraud and Kickback Scheme

According to court documents, most of the residents at Moultrie’s halfway house were recovering from drug and/or alcohol addictions. Moultrie agreed to refer Medicare beneficiaries who resided at his halfway house to ATC to purportedly receive intensive mental health services called partial hospitalization program (PHP) treatment in exchange for illegal health care kickbacks. Moultrie admitted that he knew the kickbacks were illegal and that ATC fraudulently billed the Medicare program for the PHP services. Moultrie also knew that no doctor had prescribed PHP treatment for his patient referrals and that his residents required drug and/or alcohol addiction treatment rather than mental health services.

According to court filings, ATC’s owners and operators paid kickbacks to owners and operators of assisted living facilities and halfway houses and to patient brokers in exchange for delivering ineligible patients to ATC and its related company, the American Sleep Institute (ASI). In some cases, the patients received a portion of those kickbacks. Throughout the course of the ATC conspiracy, millions of dollars in kickbacks were paid in exchange for Medicare beneficiaries who did not qualify for PHP services. The ineligible beneficiaries attended treatment programs that were not legitimate so that ATC and ASI could bill Medicare more than $200 million in medically unnecessary services.

According to the plea agreement, Moultrie’s participation in the fraud resulted in approximately $1.9 million in fraudulent billing to the Medicare program.