On Tuesday, it was announced that a Sturgis, Michigan psychologist had been sentenced to prison for his involvement in a health care fraud scheme. 63-year-old George E. Compton Jr. was sentenced to 28 months in prison. Compton previously pled guilty to carrying out the scheme from January 1, 2013 to June 30, 2016. The defendant billed various health care insurance companies for psychological counseling sessions that were never provided.
Compton operated a psychology practice in Coldwater, Michigan. During his time in business, he established many legitimate relationships with patients and provided them with counseling sessions. However, the defendant often abused those relationships. He regularly billed his patients’ health care benefit programs for counseling sessions that exceeded the number of actual sessions provided.
In one case, Compton billed one patient’s insurance 100 times, despite the child only partaking in eight counseling sessions. Compton’s overbillings were occasionally detected. When they were, he claimed that it was a mistake or an error caused by his billing software. He reimbursed the health care benefit program for the over payment.
When audited by one of the health care benefit programs, the defendant created fake patient counseling notes to make it look like he actually provided counseling sessions on the corresponding dates. Over the course of 41 months, Compton received more than $800,000 in fraudulent insurance payments and spent more than $410,000 for various items, including sound equipment for his business, ACE Mobile Recording, vacations, concert tickets, and other personal items.
Again, George E. Compton Jr. has been sentenced to 28 months in prison. Additional details can be found here.