View this article online: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2018/06/08/491669.htm
A central New York orthopedic surgeon has been sentenced for running an ongoing scheme that defrauded the workers’ compensation system by nearly $87,000.
Dr. Gregory B. Shankman, of Clinton, N.Y., was sentenced in Oneida County Court for his previous guilty plea to two counts of offering a false instrument for filing in the second degree. At sentencing, Shankman surrendered his license to practice medicine and paid full restitution of $86,896. He was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge.
“This former doctor enriched himself by practicing fraud instead of medicine,” said New York State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott in a press release issued by The New York State Office of the Workers’ Compensation Fraud Inspector General. “His criminal acts enabled him to travel extensively and vacation abroad while shunning the most basic requirements of his job.”
An investigation by Leahy Scott found Shankman, who maintained offices in Utica, N.Y., defrauded the workers’ compensation system by certifying he was overseeing claimant medical exams at his Utica office when he was instead traveling in western New York, out of state and even out of the country.
According to the investigation, Shankman was on multiple occasions performing workers’ compensation medical examinations in offices across upstate and western New York regions while also billing for examinations conducted simultaneously at his Utica office, where he was required to be under state law.
The investigation found that Shankman was not in his Utica offices on more than 150 separate days between January 2015 and August 2017 while certifying he was at the office each of those days overseeing multiple workers’ compensation exams. On many of the days when he indicated he was performing exams at his offices in Utica, he was in fact performing other exams in offices near Buffalo, was out of state or traveling in Iceland in the spring of 2016, according to the release.
Shankman systematically submitted false bills for medical services rendered by a workers’ compensation medical provider to the State Insurance Fund, the County of Oneida and other insurance carriers, third party administrators and self-insured entities.
Source: The New York State Office of the Workers’ Compensation Fraud Inspector General