A 72-year-old Atlanta doctor on Monday pleaded guilty to submitting fraudulent bills for psychological therapy sessions with patients who were deceased at the time he said he counseled them.
Robert Williams had obtained a contract to provide group counseling for patients in a number of assisted-living homes, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Williams received more than $975,000 in reimbursements from Medicaid and Medicare for claims submitted from July 2007 to October 2009, and an investigation showed he billed to counsel some clients who were dead at the time.
“With so many elderly citizens and others who need specialized psychological care, this defendant ignored his duty as a doctor and became a billing machine who claimed to treat patients who were in fact dead," U.S. Attorney Sally Yates said in a statement. "This blatant attempt to rip off the system took funds and care away from real live patients with real problems."
Brian Lamkin, special agent in charge of the FBI office in Atlanta, said that Williams had for years enjoyed a position of trust in the medical and health-care provider industry.
"He chose to abandon that trust and instead displayed a level of greed that will not be tolerated," Lamkin said.
In two cases, prosecutors said, one of the so-called patients had died more than a year before he was allegedly seen by Williams. Numerous other claims were submitted to Medicare and Medicaid for group psychological therapy when the client was actually hospitalized at the time and could not have received the care, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Williams, who pleaded guilty to two counts of health-care fraud, is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 23.
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