On April 1, 2016, Department of Justice announced, Sharon Iglehart, a former attending psychiatrist at Riverside General Hospital of Houston was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, one count of health care fraud and three counts of making false statements relating to health care matters. The judge also ordered Sharon Iglehart to pay $6,363,528.82 in restitution and to forfeit the same amount.
The allegations arose from a lawsuit, claiming from 2006 until June 2012, Sharon Iglehart and others engaged in a scheme to defraud Medicare by submitting through Riverside approximately $158 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for partial hospitalization program services, an intensive outpatient treatment for severe mental illness.
Evidence proved that many of the Medicare beneficiaries did not receive partial hospitalization program services. The majority of the Medicare beneficiaries hardly ever saw a psychiatrist and did not receive intensive psychiatric treatment at all. Sharon Iglehart personally billed Medicare for individual psychotherapy, along with other treatments that were never provided and falsified the medical records of patients to make it appear as if she provided psychiatric treatment.
A total of twelve other individuals have also been convicted for their roles in this scheme.
