Northbrook chiropractor sentenced to 20 months for health care fraud

A Northbrook chiropractor changed into sentenced to twenty months in federal detention center Tuesday for billing an coverage carrier for medically unnecessary or nonexistent functions, in response to the U.S. lawyer's workplace.

Steven Paul, forty six, of Northbrook, previously pleaded responsible to one count of health care fraud. judge Ronald A. Guzman mentioned Paul's "extraordinary cooperation" all over the investigation as he imposted the bottom feasible prison sentence for the charge, in response to a U.S. legal professional's office news unlock.

Paul and co-defendant Bradley Mattson, a chiropractor, pointed out in plea agreements that they required patients to acquire an preliminary x-ray and a pre-set schedule of medical institution visits for a period of six months "devoid of regard to the medical necessity of the visits," based on the liberate.

Paul brought up that from 1999 to 2008 he directed $3.65 million in expenses to Blue go Blue guard for medically unnecessary assessments or physical therapy functions that had been not provided, and his clinics got $1.33 million in fraudulent reimbursements from the insurance business, prosecutors mentioned.

Paul and Mattson owned six chiropractic clinics in the north suburbs including Hawthorn physical medicine, Woodfield physical medication, Stratford physical medicine, Algonquin physical drugs, Northshore actual medicine and Cumberland actual medicine, in response to the information unlock.

An undercover FBI agent visited the Hawthorn hospital for medication for a lower back stress, and Mattson diagnosed the agent with a pinched nerve and ordered a pre-set medication plan that begun with daily visits for 2 weeks, in line with the report.

Mattson made the prognosis regardless of an opinion from the health facility's scientific doctor and physical therapist that the agent had a pulled muscle and not a pinched nerve, it spoke of.

Mattson, of Lake wooded area, pleaded responsible to fitness care fraud and became sentenced to 6 and a half years in jail in 2012, in response to the unencumber.

akukulka@chicagotribune.com

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