Physician’s Assistant Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Defraud Medicare and Medicaid

CHARLOTTE, NC—A physician’s assistant employed at a medical clinic in Charlotte has pled guilty to charges of conspiring to defraud Medicare and the North Carolina Division of Medical Assistance (“Medicaid”), announced Anne M. Tompkins, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.

Joining U.S. Attorney Tompkins in making today’s announcement are Derrick Jackson, Special Agent in Charge, Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General (HHS-OIG), Office of Investigations, Atlanta Region; Robin Pendergraft, Senior Deputy Attorney General of the North Carolina Attorney General’s Medicaid Investigations Unit (MIU); Chris Briese, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Charlotte Division; and Russell F. Nelson, Special Agent in Charge of the United States Secret Service (USSS), Charlotte Field Division. A criminal bill of information filed on June 30, 2011, charged Kelly Gene Svedberg, 40, of Charlotte, with one count of conspiracy to defraud a health care benefit program. According to the information, Svedberg was employed from in or about September 2007 to in or about August 2008 as a licensed physician’s assistant at a medical clinic in Charlotte. From 2007 through in or about December 2008, the defendant and others, including another employee at the medical clinic, participated in a scheme to defraud Medicare, Medicaid, and others by billing those entities for medical services which were medically unnecessary, not provided, or both, including, but not limited to, electromylogram (“EMG”) and anorectal manometry (“AM”) treatments.

Svedberg entered a plea of guilty on Wednesday, July 6, 2011. According to the plea agreement, the defendant agreed that the amount of loss to Medicare and Medicaid caused by this scheme was more than $120,000 and less than $200,000. Svedberg, who has been released on bond, faces a maximum sentence of ten years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000. A sentencing date has not been set yet.

The investigation and charges are the work of the Western District’s joint Health Care Fraud Task Force. The Task Force is multi-agency team of federal and state investigators and prosecutors who are dedicated to identifying and punishing those who defraud the health care system, and to reduce the potential for health care fraud in the future. The Task Force focuses on the coordination of cases, information sharing, identification of trends in health care fraud throughout the region, staffing of all whistle blower complaints, and the creation of investigative teams so that individual agencies may focus their unique areas of expertise on investigations. The Task Force builds upon existing partnerships between the agencies and its work reflects a heightened effort to reduce fraud and recover taxpayer dollars.

The investigation into Svedberg was led by HHS-OIG, MIU, and the FBI, with the assistance of USSS. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kelli H. Ferry of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte.