Opinion ID: 47971
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Healthcare FraudFN4

Text: FN4. Okoro does not appeal his conviction for tax fraud. Okoro also worked with 21 other physical therapy clinics. Medicare issues a group number to each health care facility and an individual provider number to physicians within the facility. Physicians must complete a “reassignment of benefits” application to allow the facility to bill Medicare for the physician's services. Medicare then reimburses the facility under the physician's provider number. The facility may bill Medicare for services that the physician renders only when he is present. Between 1998 and 2000, Okoro received individual provider numbers in connection with 21 physical therapy clinics. These clinics were owned by Akpan, Sekibo Williams, a foreign medical student who worked at Medcare, and Henry Johnson, Spectrum's previous owner. In total, the clinics billed Medicare $9,788,724.76, and Medicare paid a total amount of $4,192,544.16 to the clinics. Of this amount, Okoro received $324,373.87 from the clinics between 1999 and 2001. 5 The evidence at trial demonstrated that many of the physical therapy clinics billed Medicare for services that Okoro allegedly rendered after he deactivated his individual provider number for that clinic. In addition, Okoro signed patient documents that stated that he had treated those patients on specific dates and at specific times on which Okoro could not possibly have rendered services. For example, many of the dates on which Okoro alleged that he provided services were dates when he was in Nigeria. Id. In February 2002, a grand jury indicted Okoro on fifteen counts of aiding and abetting mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1342; three counts of filing false income tax returns, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7206(1); and seven counts of healthcare fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1347. Following trial, a jury found Okoro guilty on all counts. Prior to the issuance of United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), the district court sentenced Okoro to 151 months in prison: 120 months for the healthcare fraud counts, 31 months (consecutive) for the tax fraud counts, and 60 months (concurrent) for the mail fraud counts.2 The 151-month sentence was the highest allowed under the Guidelines. Okoro appealed his conviction and sentence and this Court upheld the conviction but remanded the pre-Booker sentence because the Government could not prove that the sentence would have been the same under a non-mandatory Guideline regime. Akpan, 407 F.3d at 2 Sixty months was the statutory maximum penalty for violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1341 in 2000. 6 377. At re-sentencing, the district court imposed the same 151month sentence and Okoro timely appealed to this Court.