Dublin Doctor Defrauds Medicare, Medicaid, Gets Four Years Probation For Health Care Fraud

Source: rockbridgeweekly.com

Acting United States Attorney Julia C. Dudley announced today that Dr. Linda Sue Cheek, age 59, of Dublin, Virginia, was sentenced yesterday in United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Roanoke for defrauding Medicaid and Medicare.

“These taxpayer-funded health care programs are designed to allow our friends and neighbors who are in need of medical care, the opportunity to obtain it,” Acting United States Attorney Julia C. Dudley said today. “When physicians like Dr. Cheek take advantage of these programs in order to get rich, it is our job to hold them responsible for their actions.”

Cheek was sentenced to serve four years of probation for her role in a scheme to knowingly and willfully defraud the Medicaid and Medicare health care programs for her own personal, financial gain. In February Cheek pled guilty to one count of health care fraud, admitting that she had been stealing from the two programs from January 2002 to March 2006.

In addition, Cheek was ordered to pay a total of $24,210.37 in restitution to Medicare and Medicaid and will be required to serve 600 hours of community service in a non-medical field. As part of her sentencing, her license to practice medicine was also revoked.

The defendant, who was a licensed physician by the Commonwealth of Virginia, operated New River Medical Associates, Inc. located in Dublin, Virginia. The facility operated primarily as a pain management and alternative medicine practice.

Cheek previously admitted that between January 2002 and March 2006 she submitted a series of false Medicare and Medicaid claims relating to her medical practice, including the practice of billing Medicaid and Medicare for services she had not performed.

In addition, Cheek admitted to billing Medicaid for services she claimed to perform herself that were, in fact, performed by one or both of the two nurse practitioners employed by New River Medical Associates. Cheek admitted that during many of these procedures she was out of the office and, at times, out of the country.

Finally, Cheek admitted to billing Medicaid and Anthem Blue Cross Beneficiaries for individual treatments called “cleansing sessions,” an investigational service. These “cleansing sessions” were performed and billed as regular, individual office visits but were carried out in a group setting. Medicaid, Medicare and other insurance providers do not allow medical professionals to bill for group sessions.

This case was investigated for the United States Attorney’s Office, Western District of Virginia by the Virginia Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, the Virginia State Police Drug Diversion Unit and the Financial Investigation Unit of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Assistant United States Attorneys Patrick Hogeboom and Charlene Day prosecuted the case for the United States.