On March 10, a federal jury convicted former physician, Frederick Gooding, 71, of Wilmington, Delaware, for his role in a $5 million health care fraud scheme.
Gooding first worked as a medical practitioner in Delaware from 1996 to 2013. In 2010, the Delaware medical board sanctioned Gooding, suspending his license for six months with two years of probation for wrongly performing medical injections to treat neck pain without the use of medical imaging equipment.
In 2012, Gooding obtained a concurrent license to operate in the District of Columbia with the understanding that he could not perform neck injection procedures. In February 2014, those restrictions were lifted.
According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Gooding owned and operated a physiatry and pain management practice in Washington, D.C., where between 2015 and 2018, he fraudulently billed Medicare more than $5 million for injections he did not perform, or did not provide as billed. Multiple procedures that Gooding claimed to provide required medical imaging equipment that he did not possess — but Gooding filed claims for reimbursement anyway.
Gooding was convicted of eleven counts of health care fraud. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 26 and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on each count.
Since March 2007, the Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program, comprised of 15 strike forces operating in 25 federal districts, has charged more than 5,000 defendants who collectively have billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $24 billion.
The attorneys at Chilivis Grubman represent clients of all types and sizes in connection with criminal healthcare fraud and government investigations. If you need assistance with such a matter, please contact us today.