As they treated hundreds of residents each year, a handful of local medical clinics helped set the stage to a $47 million Medicaid scam shut down by the New York Attorney General’s office last week.
Officials said that Bath Medical, located at 2015 Bath Avenue, ANR Advanced Home Care at 2604 Avenue U, as well as two other medical offices at the corner of East 16th Street and Kings Highway and 2875 West 8th Street – right in the same building as the Department of Motor Vehicles in Coney Island — were all run by Staten Island resident Alexander Levy, who is currently facing charges that he had illegally obtained payments for the treatment of Medicaid recipients and then laundered the profits.
Levy reportedly controlled and managed one home health care agency, two ambulette companies and three medical clinics – all of which billed Medicaid of millions of dollars for their services, officials alleged. All of the medical companies catered to Russian immigrant populations in Coney Island, Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay.
The problem was that Levy, who was previously busted for submitting false Medicaid claims for medically unnecessary services or services that were never performed, was booted from participation in the Medicaid program back in 1997, Cuomo said when announcing Levy’s indictment.
Levy managed to get away with the scam by staying completely under the radar and not attaching his name to any of the corporations under his control, officials alleged.
Dogged investigators researching the clinics uncovered Levy’s involvement when they found a series of bank and wire transfers to a number of shell companies, officials alleged.
The shell companies made payoffs to a construction company, which Levy specifically set up to receive clinic payments, officials allege.
“[Levy] is accused of cheating New York taxpayers out of tens of millions of dollars through an elaborate money laundering scheme,” Cuomo said in a statement. “But as we have done before, we ‘followed the money,’ which led us to these serious charges.”
With Levy as their leader, none of the corporations under his control were allowed to bill Medicaid, officials alleged.
Yet a further investigation showed that many of the services that these clinics sought payment for weren’t even performed by licensed physicians, alleged officials.
Patients would reportedly be seen by an unlicensed physician, officials alleged. These charts would then be given to a licensed physician in bulk who would sign off on them before the clinics would bill Medicaid for services rendered, officials alleged.
The Attorney General’s office filed a civil forfeiture complaint against Levy last week in an attempt to recoup the $47 million siphoned from the Medical program.
The suit also seeks triple that amount, as well as additional penalties, under New York’s False Claims Act and health care fraud statutes.
The Kings County District Attorney’s office has also indicted Levy and his accomplices – one who lived as far away as Israel — in the scam on charges of grand larceny, health care fraud and money laundering.
Brooklyn clinic operators arrested in the scam included Aaron Bethea, 53, Leonid Skylar, 30 and Yelena Bogatyrov, 43.
