Pedicure scam trips up podiatrist
Reprints
Putting your feet up and enjoying a nice pedicure can be just what the doctor ordered — except when it’s your actual doctor giving the pedicure.
Greenwich, Connecticut-based podiatrist Dr. Amira Mantoura on Monday received her sentence for submitting more than $200,000 in false claims to Medicare, the Old Greenwich, Connecticut-based Greenwich Time news website reported Tuesday.
“Between January 2009 and August 2013, Mantoura knowingly submitted materially false claims to the Medicare program and to private insurance companies to obtain payment for a nail avulsion when she knew that she had not performed a nail avulsion. Rather than perform a nail avulsion, in most of these instances Mantoura had merely provided her patients with routine foot care including clipping the patients’ toenails,” Connecticut U.S. Attorney Deirdre M. Daly said in a statement.
A nail avulsion is a surgical procedure to treat an ingrown toenail. Dr. Mantoura performed little more than pedicures.
She was paid $206,000 from the false claims she submitted to Medicare and Medicaid programs and private insurance companies, Greenwich Time reports.
Dr. Mantoura has been ordered to pay $618,000 in fines and restitution. She will not be allowed to submit federal health care claims, but she won’t serve any jail time. She was sentenced to three years of probation and 200 hours of community service by U.S. District Judge Michael P. Shea on Monday, Greenwich Time reported.
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