John H. Johnson, MD, an anesthesiologist from Hollidaysburg, Pa., was sentenced to seven years in prison for employment tax fraud and accepting kickbacks, according to the Department of Justice.
Dr. Johnson, 55, owned and operated several pain management clinics. He knowingly received $2.3 million in kickbacks from May 2011 to November 2013 for referring Medicare and Medicaid patients to Universal Oral Fluid Labs, a drug testing lab in Greensburg, Pa., according to the DOJ report. Dr. Johnson received monthly checks from UOFL under a joint-venture agreement with the lab owner and operator, William Hughes.
Dr. Johnson also willfully failed to pay federal income taxes for Central Anesthesia, his group of pain management clinics, and its employees. For the third quarter of 2013 alone, he withheld more than $135,000 in income taxes, according to the report.
As part of his sentence, Dr. Johnson was ordered to pay restitution of $2.3 million to HHS and more than $722,000 to the Internal Revenue Service. The first 60 months of his prison time will overlap with a sentence from the Southern District of Florida.
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