* Chiropractic "practice-builder" convicted of insurance fraud.
A federal jury in Clarksburg, West Virginia has found Ronald L. Halstead, D.C., and two West Virginia chiropractors guilty of charges relating to a conspiracy to commit mail fraud and health care fraud. Halstead was found guilty of one count of conspiracy, 14 counts of health care fraud, and 11 counts of money laundering; and William C. Filcheck Jr. D.C., and Scott G. Taylor , D.C. were both found guilty of one count of conspiracy and 14 counts of health care fraud. A fourth defendant, Robert B. Burns, Jr., D.C., who owned the clinics in which the fraud took place, has been arrested in Ireland and is fighting to prevent extradition to face the charges. The scheme involved the submission of false claims to Medicare and private insurance companies for more than $2.8 million in order to evade payment limitations. Halstead has been teaching chiropractors how to boost their incomes for more than 20 years. A 1981 advertisement for his audiotaped practice-management course stated that he saw over 700 patients per week and had made nearly $800,000 in 1980 but, due to investments and "proper income tax planning," had paid no income tax for 7 consecutive years. Not long afterward, he was convicted of Medicaid fraud in Illinois. In 1982, he moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, where he operated Practice Systems, a practice-management firm that taught chiropractors how set up high-volume MD/DC practices for rehabilitating injured patients. During the 1990s, ads for his seminars boasted that many of his clients had increased their income by $50,000 per month and that a few were producing over $300,000 per month. The indictment noted that the chiropractors used scripts created by Halstead that were designed to (a) persuade new patients that they had serious spinal conditions, even if they did not; (b) persuade the patients that their "conditions" could be effectively treated by chiropractic manipulation and other means; and (c) overcome any objections the prospective patients had to the type, frequency, length, and cost of the proposed treatments. The clinic staff then followed protocols devised by Halstead to order treatment based on the scope of the patients' insurance coverage rather than their actual physical conditions and needs. Chirobase has posted Halstead's 1981 ad, samples of his scripts, a copy of the indictment, and further details about the case.
* Original charges on DoD web site The defendants billed and/or caused to be billed Federal health care benefits programs in the name of medical doctors for more than $2.8 million for tests, treatments and other services when these services were actually provided by chiropractors. By falsely indicating the referenced medical services were performed by a medical doctor, when they were not, the defendants received reimbursement for services to which they were otherwise not entitled.