Press Release
☷Doctor Sentenced in $12 Million Medicare Fraud and Device Adulteration Scheme
U.S. Department of Justice ( By Press Release office)
Apr 28,2022
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A California doctor was sentenced today to 93 months in prison for defrauding Medicare , re - packaging single - use catheters for re - use on patients , and submitting false declarations in a bankruptcy proceeding . According to court documents , Donald Woo Lee , 55 , of Temecula , recruited Medicare beneficiaries to his clinics , falsely diagnosed the beneficiaries , and provided the beneficiaries with medically unnecessary procedures . Lee billed these unnecessary procedures to Medicare using an inappropriate code in order to obtain a higher reimbursement , a practice known as “upcoding . ” In addition , the evidence showed that Lee re - packaged used , contaminated catheters for re - use on patients . These catheters had been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ) for marketing as single - use only and the re - use of these devices put patients at risk of infection and other bodily injury . Lee submitted claims of approximately $12 million to Medicare for the vein ablation procedures he performed , and received $4 . 5 million as a result . In October 2019 , Lee was convicted after a five - day trial , when a jury found him guilty of seven counts of health care fraud and one count of adulteration of a medical device . Lee also pleaded guilty on March 2 , 2020 , to one count of submitting false declarations in a bankruptcy proceeding . In addition to the term of imprisonment , Lee was sentenced to serve three years of supervised release and ordered to pay more than $4 . 5 million in restitution to Medicare . Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A . Polite , Jr . of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U . S . Attorney Tracy L . Wilkison for the Central District of California; Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division; Assistant Director in Charge Kristi K . Johnson of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office; Special Agent in Charge Timothy DeFrancesca of the U . S . Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General’s ( HHS - OIG ) Los Angeles Regional Office; and Special Agent in Charge Lisa Malinowski of the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations’ ( FDA - OCI ) Los Angeles Field Office , made the announcement . The FBI , HHS - OIG , and FDA - OCI investigated the case . Assistant Chief Alexis Gregorian and Trial Attorney Emily Culbertson of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section prosecuted the case . The Fraud Section leads the Medicare Fraud Strike Force . Since its inception in March 2007 , the Medicare Fraud Strike Force , which maintains 15 strike forces operating in 24 districts , has charged more than 4 , 200 defendants who have collectively billed the Medicare program for nearly $19 billion . In addition , the HHS Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services , working in conjunction with the HHS - OIG , are taking steps to increase accountability and decrease the presence of fraudulent providers .
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