Hospitals, Health IT

Ex-CFO sentenced for Meaningful Use fraud, but money may be gone

The former CFO of a Texas hospital implicated in a scheme to defraud the Meaningful Use health IT incentive program has been sentenced to 23 months in federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $4.5 million.

The former CFO of a Texas hospital implicated in a scheme to defraud the Meaningful Use health IT incentive program has been sentenced to 23 months in federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $4.5 million in restitution. But the government may find it impossible to collect most of the money, a Dallas newspaper reported.

Joe White, ex-CFO of  the now-shuttered Shelby Regional Medical Center in Center, Texas, and other hospitals owned by Dr. Tariq Mahmood, was given the sentence last week for falsely attesting to Meaningful Use nearly three years ago.

Shelby Regional, which closed in 2013, received $785,655 in Medicare bonus payments as a result of White’s fraudulent attestation, prosecutors said. Hospitals owned by Mahmood received more than $16 million in Medicare and Medicaid Meaningful Use funds, though, according to the Dallas Morning News, little of the money actually went to EHRs.

In April, Mahmood was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for a separate conviction on healthcare billing fraud. White actually agreed to cooperate with the U.S. Department of Justice in Mahmood’s case in return for a lighter sentence.

 

Though Judge Michael Schneider ordered White to pay $4,483,089.09 in restitution, taxpayers may never see the money. “They’ll be lucky to get 100 bucks from garnishing his prison paychecks,” White’s defense attorney joked after the sentencing hearing, the Morning News reported.

While lawyers for both White and the government reportedly both said Mahmood took the money, prosecutors were unable to tie the physician to the Meaningful Use crime. Mahmood’s conviction was on different charges, and carried restitution of just short of $600,000.

Since Meaningful Use audits are conducted on a “pay-and-chase” basis, the millions may already be spent. This is typical of efforts to collect restitution in federal criminal cases, according to the Morning News.

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