Louisiana Doctor Pleads Guilty to Workers’ Comp Fraud, Conspiracy

A Lake Charles, Louisiana, orthopedic surgeon pleaded guilty to workers’ compensation fraud conspiracy, the U.S. Justice Department reported.

Robert Dale Bernauer Sr., 74, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, health care fraud, fraud to obtain federal employees’ compensation, and illegal kickbacks, in connection with a scheme to defraud the U.S. government and private insurance companies by over-billing for unnecessary medications provided to workers’ compensation patients, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Bernauer pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to violate five different federal statutes. According to court documents, Bernauer made more than $1,000,000 off of the scheme, which ran from 2011 until 2017 and defrauded both federal and private workers’ compensation insurers.

Court documents allege that the basic premise of the scheme was that individuals associated with an Arkansas company recruited Bernauer to dispense pain creams and patches to his workers’ comp patients by offering him a 50% split of the profits collected from successfully billing insurers. The company billed insurers at markups of anywhere from 1,500% to 2,000% — in other words, 15 to 20 times what the medications actually cost.

The unnamed company acted as the billing agent for Bernauer, handling all of the paperwork and submitting the allegedly fraudulent claims to both the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, which covers all federal employees, and to private insurers, as well.

Bernauer admitted that both he and his co-conspirators knew he did not have a license to dispense medications from his clinic, which was required under Louisiana law. The contracts with Bernauer provided that both he and the company would each get half of all amounts successfully collected from insurers.

Although such profit-splitting arrangements violated both federal and Louisiana laws, in pleading guilty Bernauer admitted he joined the scheme knowing it was, in his words, “too good to be true.”

Court documents indicate that Bernauer was not the only physician involved in this scheme, and the total financial harm to federal and private workers’ compensation insurers is not listed. However, Bernauer alone accounted for a loss of approximately $2,050,546, including a $664,176.50 loss for the federal agencies whose employees were Bernauer’s patients.

In his plea agreement, Bernauer promised to immediately start making amends, by within 30 days paying $664,176.30 directly to the Department of Labor, as restitution to the federal agencies that were primary targets of the fraudulent scheme, and a further $361,096.70 to the court clerk’s office, to be distributed to other insurers victimized by the conspiracy.

Bernauer also acknowledged that he would be subject to an additional restitution order of approximately $1,025,273, as a shared obligation with any of his co-conspirators who are later convicted.

As a result of his guilty plea to the single conspiracy count, Bernauer may be sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison.

The case was investigated by the Department of Defense, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General, the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, with the assistance of the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, the Louisiana Department of Justice, the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, and the Louisiana Board of Pharmacy.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Steven Mohlhenrich and Hunter Bridges prosecuted the case for the United States.

Source: U.S. Justice Department

Topics Fraud Workers' Compensation Louisiana