WHAT A HEEL: Thieving Therapist Defrauds Medicare
On the heels of learning that Medicare’s trust fund will be completely tapped out five years earlier than previous estimates, comes word that Brooklyn, NY, physical therapist Aleksandr Kharkover pleaded guilty to submitting $11.9 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare from January 2005 through July 2010 for services that were medically unnecessary and/or never performed. Mining a computerized Medicare-claims payment database, The Wall Street Journal identified Kharkover as a possible Medicare cheat because his billing was “far above the norm”:
Medicare paid out $7.3 million [to Kharkover], according to a person familiar with the investigation.
Mr. Kharkover was profiled in a December 2010 Wall Street Journal article about possible financial abuse involving physical therapy, a growing area of fraud in Medicare.
In February, he was indicted by the Justice Department. People close to the investigation said the federal probe had begun before the Journal article was published. …
According to a person familiar with the case, in one instance Mr. Kharkover allegedly submitted a bill for a service he performed personally, but on a date when he was on a vacation cruise. Mr. Kharkover hasn't yet been sentenced.
Kharkover’s attorney Montell Figgins tells The Journal that there was no plea deal, and that his client "just pled guilty to all charges listed in the indictment."
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