BOSTON – A former manager of medical device company Orthofix was sentenced today in federal court for defrauding Medicare by falsifying patient medical records.
In March 2012, Derrick R.D. Field, 36, of Greenland, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty to charges of health care fraud. Today, U.S. District Court Joseph L. Tauro sentenced him to five months home confinement as part of his two years probation. Judge Tauro also ordered Field to pay a fine of $4,000, and to forfeit $40,000.
Field admitted that for several years he falsified patient medical records, causing Medicare to pay more than $250,000 for fraudulent claims for medical devices. Between 2005 and 2011, Field was a territory manager for Orthofix, Inc., a company that manufactured and distributed bone growth stimulator medical devices. Bone growth stimulators are used to assist patients with bone fractures that did not heal properly. Medicare has specific rules describing when it will pay for this device. When Field received bone growth stimulator orders for Medicare patients that did not meet these rules, Field forged the patients’ medical records to make it appear as though the order met the rules to induce Medicare to pay for claims that otherwise would not be covered. For instance, Field created phony medical chart notes, describing patient visits that did not occur and altered the physicians’ actual chart notes by inserting false diagnoses and descriptions of the patients’ medical history. Field forged medical records in connection with more than 100 Medicare claims, causing Medicare to pay Orthofix for orders that did not meet program guidelines.
In addition to Field’s sentence, the on-going Orthofix investigation has resulted in a number of felony charges against executives, employees and contractors of Orthofix, including the following:
1. In December 2012, Orthofix was convicted of obstruction of a federal audit, and ordered to pay approximately $42 million in criminal fines and civil payments, and was sentenced to probation for five years;
2. In April 2012, Thomas Guerrieri pleaded guilty to paying kickbacks while he was vice president of Orthofix;
4. In December 2011, Mitchell Salzman pleaded guilty while he was a regional manager for Orthofix;
6. In July 2012, Michael Cobb, a physician’s assistant, was sentenced to six months in prison to be followed by two years of supervised release, six months of which under home confinement and ordered to pay $10,000 in forfeiture. Cobb previously pleaded guilty to accepting kickbacks from Orthofix.;
7. In May 2012, Michael McKay pleaded guilty to health care fraud while he was a territory manager for Orthofix; and
8. In September 2012, Brian Racey pleaded guilty to health care fraud while he was a territory manager for Orthofix.
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