Mississippi Doctor Sentenced to 168 Months in Prison for Health Care Fraud
| U.S. Attorney’s Office August 17, 2012 |
JACKSON, MS—Cassandra Faye Thomas, of Jackson, was sentenced in U.S. District Court today to serve 168 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release for health care fraud, wire fraud, making false statements related to health care, theft of government funds, and conspiracy to commit health care fraud, U.S. Attorney Gregory K. Davis and FBI Special Agent in Charge Daniel McMullen announced. Thomas was also ordered to pay $6,924,958.60 in restitution and to forfeit $6,924,988.60 to the United States.
Thomas owned Central Mississippi Physical Medicine Group Inc., which had offices in Flora and Yazoo City, Mississippi. Central Mississippi Physical Medicine Group claimed to provide physical therapy services to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries in their homes, free of charge to the beneficiary. Thomas submitted claims to Medicare and Medicaid which represented that the therapy services had either been provided by a doctor, provided under the doctor’s direct supervision, or provided by a licensed physical therapist. None of the services that were billed to Medicare and Medicaid were provided or supervised by a doctor or a licensed physical therapist. Instead, the therapy services were provided by employees of Central Mississippi Physical Medicine Group, none of whom were trained or licensed physical therapists. In fact, most of the employees of Central Mississippi Physical Medicine Group had little or no medical training at all. From March 2002 until September 2004, Thomas billed Medicare and Medicaid for false claims of more than $12,000,000 and was paid more than $6,900,000.
The case was in investigated by the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant
U.S. Attorney Scott Gilbert and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Treasure Tyson of the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office Medicaid Fraud Control Unit prosecuted the case on behalf of the United States.