The owner of a New York pharmacy was sentenced to six months in jail for participating in a $1.5 million Medicaid kickback scheme with a former hospital employee from East Meadow, N.Y.-based Nassau University Medical Center, according to the New York State Office of the Attorney General.
Arkady Goldin, owner of Lynbrook, N.Y.-based Value Pharmacy, pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud June 8. Authorities accused Mr. Goldin of defrauding the state's Medicaid program for $1.5 million as part of a kickback arrangement with a former NUMC employee. The former hospital employee pleaded guilty to unlawfully accepting Medicaid kickbacks earlier in the investigation.
From January 2012 to November 2013, Mr. Goldin paid the hospital employee a monthly cash referral fee and other incentives like sporting event tickets, an iPad and meals, to steer expensive cancer prescriptions from NUMC to Value Pharmacy, according to the investigation. Authorities found Value Pharmacy also submitted false claims to Medicaid for medications it never dispensed.
In addition to his prison sentence, Mr. Golin received five years' probation. He will be required to pay $1.5 million in restitution to the state and another $1.5 million in fines.
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