Doctor faces prison, fines for defrauding state health plan

A former Niskayuna, New York, surgeon will spend up to six years in prison and pay $400,000 in restitution for engineering a multimillion-dollar fraud against Empire Plan, the main health insurance provider for state employees, reports the Times Union. Steven A. St. Lucia, who founded Union Foot Solutions in 2009, concealed the fact that he had been stripped of his license to practice medicine in 2000 and barred from participating in all federal health care programs, state authorities said.