Company sales director to plead guilty in Boston to offering kickbacks to doctors for brain scans
The sales director for a New York company has agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to offer and pay millions in kickbacks to doctors in exchange for ordering medically unnecessary brain scans, the U.S. Attorney said this week.
David Fuhrmann, 59, of Port Jefferson, N.Y. was charged Thursday in federal court in Boston, U.S. Attorney Leah Foley said in a statement.
Fuhrmann has agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute, Foley said. A plea hearing has not yet been scheduled.
The scheme resulted in fraudulent bills of approximately $70.6 million to Medicare, according to the charging documents.
Prosecutors allege that from June 2013 through at least September 2020, Fuhrmann conspired with others, including two managers for a mobile medical diagnostics company that performed transcranial doppler or TCD scans, to enter into kickback agreements with various doctors.
Fuhrmann and his co-conspirators allegedly 'agreed to offer and pay doctors kickbacks based on the number of TCD ultrasounds the doctors ordered,' Foley said in her statement.
It was unclear Wednesday if any of the doctors allegedly involved in the kickback scheme are from Massachusetts or New England, and whether the doctors would also face charges in connection with the kickback scheme.
Some doctors were paid in cash and others by check, prosecutors allege. Fuhrmann and others allegedly created rental and administrative service agreements.
'On paper, these agreements made it appear as if doctors were compensated for the TCD company's use of space and administrative resources based on fair market value and not based on the volume or value of referrals,' the U.S. Attorney's statement said.
'These agreements were allegedly shams that hid the true nature of the arrangement of paying per test,' prosecutors said.
If convicted on the charge of conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute, Fuhrmann faces a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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