Calif. chiropractor charged in $300,000 comp fraud scheme
Reprints
A Riverside, California, chiropractor was charged by the Riverside County district attorney’s office Thursday with 47 felony counts related to a $300,000 insurance fraud and kickback scheme, investigators announced.
Curtis Wayne Montgomery is facing three counts of insurance fraud, 28 counts of receiving commission for referring clients and 16 counts of money laundering. The charged crimes are alleged to have happened from 2011 to 2016, the local prosecutor’s office said in a press release.
In March, county investigators learned that more than $300,000 in payments had been made from Mr. Montgomery to a company called Providence Scheduling, which was designed to field phone calls from injured workers and then funnel those people to doctors and chiropractors throughout California.
The two men who owned and operated Providence Scheduling, Carlos Arguello and Fermin Iglesias, have already entered guilty pleas to federal charges. As part of the scheme, the men required that medical providers refer a certain number of patients to outside companies for medical equipment, imaging and other treatments. However, the two men owned these outside companies and were able to bill insurance companies for services, according to the press release.
If doctors and chiropractors failed to refer enough patients to these outside companies, Providence Scheduling would stop or slow the number of patients they would refer to the medical providers, the press release said.
Mr. Montgomery will be arraigned on July 16, 2018.
Read Next
-
Calif. comp proposes geographic changes to medical fee schedule
Current market conditions are driving geography-based changes to California’s medical fee schedule for physicians treating injured workers in the state, the California Division of Workers Compensation announced Friday.
Related Stories
-
Calif. comp proposes geographic changes to medical fee schedule
-
Calif. comp bureau votes to submit lower midyear premium rate filing
-
