United States v. DeHaan

For five years, DeHaan, a licensed family‐practice physician working in the Chicago and Rockford areas, was affiliated with agencies providing medical services to homebound patients, and served as medical director of several home health agencies, assisted living facilities, and hospices. DeHaan billed Medicare at the highest levels for services to homebound patients that were ostensibly time‐consuming or complex, when in fact he had either conducted a routine, non‐complex patient visit or had not seen the patient at all on the occasion for which he was billing. At the behest of home health agencies, DeHaan certified as homebound patients whom he either knew did not meet Medicare’s criteria (42 U.S.C. 1395n(a)(2)(A)) for home care or as to whom he lacked meaningful knowledge. DeHaan pled guilty to two counts of a 23‐count indictment, admitting to overbilling and fraudulent certifications. The district court took evidence and found that he was responsible for fraudulently certifying the eligibility of least 305 individuals for home health care services, resulting in wrongful billings to Medicare of nearly $2.8 million. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding no error in the district court’s “conservative loss‐estimation methodology,” and upheld a within‐Guidelines sentence of 108 months in prison with an order to pay restitution of $2,787,054.58. View "United States v. DeHaan" on Justia Law