A registered nurse and nurse practitioner pleaded guilty to fraudulently billing commercial health insurers and Medicare nearly $4.38 million for services he did not perform.
Alexander Istomin, 56, admitted to routinely submitting fraudulent claims for in-person patient services he claimed to have provided to patients in his Rhode Island, New York and Florida offices, according to an Oct. 20 news release from the Justice Department.
On many occasions when he claimed to have seen patients, Mr. Isomin was in a different state or out of the country, according to the release. An investigation found that an office Mr. Istomin claimed to maintain in East Greenwich, R.I., was a non-existent medical practice.
Mr. Istomin also admitted he waived copayments for some Medicare patients and used patient names and information to get prescriptions to be filled at pharmacies, according to the release. He arranged for those prescriptions to be sent to him so that he could distribute them to those other than the patients in whose names the prescriptions were filled.
Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 26. Mr. Istomin has agreed to forfeit the nearly $4.38 million he fraudulently received, according to the release.