A Georgia nurse practitioner has been sentenced to 87 months in federal prison and ordered to pay more than $1.6 million in restitution for her role in an orthopedic telemedicine fraud scheme, the Justice Department said Aug. 9.
While working as a nurse practitioner, Sherley Beaufils, ordered more than 3,000 orthotic braces that generated more than $3 million in fraudulent or excessive Medicare charges. Braces were ordered for patients Ms. Beaufils never examined, including a knee brace for an amputee and back brace for a deceased patient, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida. She falsified medical records and examinations to facilitate the orders, investigators said, and then sold the orders to companies to generate Medicare reimbursement.
A jury convicted Ms. Beaufils of five counts each of healthcare fraud, false statements related to healthcare and aggravated identity theft. The judge ordered Ms. Beaufils to serve three years of supervised release after the prison term.