George E. Compton, Jr., 63, of Sturgis, Michigan, was sentenced to 28 months in prison, U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge announced last week. Compton previously pled guilty to executing a health care fraud scheme from January 1, 2013, until June 30, 2016, when he repeatedly billed numerous health care insurance companies for psychological counseling sessions that he never provided. When imposing the sentence, U.S. District Court Judge Gordon Quist commented that Compton had “ample opportunity to come clean” and that his conduct “contributed to a loss of confidence in the health care industry as a whole because of what occurred right here in our own neighborhood.” The court also ordered Compton to pay restitution to the health care insurance companies that he defrauded.
“Unfortunately, this case represents yet another example of how some health care professionals allow their own greed to lead them down the path of defrauding health care benefit programs and ultimately harming consumers,” said U.S. Attorney Birge. “My office will continue to vigorously prosecute those who commit health care fraud against private or public health insurance plans.”
Compton, who operated a psychology practice in Coldwater, Michigan, established legitimate relationships with numerous patients to provide periodic counseling sessions. However, after establishing these relationships, Compton regularly billed his patients’ health care benefit programs for counseling sessions that grossly exceeded the number of actual counseling sessions that he provided, including billing one patient’s insurance 100 times when her children only actually received eight counseling sessions. When his patients or the health care benefit programs occasionally detected his excess billings, Compton claimed that the billings were the result of an honest mistake or the automated billing functions of his billing software and he reimbursed the health care benefit program for the over-payment. Additionally, when audited by one of the health care benefit programs, Compton created fake patient counseling notes in an attempt to make it appear as if he actually provided counseling sessions on dates that he knew he had submitted false billings. During the 41 months that the fraud occurred, Compton received over $800,000.00 in fraudulent insurance payments and spent over $410,000.00 on various credit cards for items including sound equipment for his business ACE Mobile Recording, vacations, concert tickets, and other personal items.
“The march before the federal bench of health care providers to answer for fraudulent billing practices continues with the sentencing of George Compton today,” said David P. Gelios, Special Agent in Charge, Detroit Division FBI. “So long as there are those like Mr. Compton who place greed over their oath, and siphon away critical resources from our health care system contributing to the rising cost of health care for all Americans, the FBI and our partners will continue our work to identify offenders and bring them to justice.”
The case was investigated by the Kalamazoo office of the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald M. Stella.
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