DOJ Charges Texas Doctor In Alleged $89 Million Healthcare Fraud Scheme

The Department of Justice said Tuesday that it charged a Texas doctor for his role in an $89 million healthcare fraud scheme.

The indictment says that Jason Finkelstein, 53, was charged with healthcare fraud and conspiracy over what prosecutors allege was a yearslong scheme that exploited college student-athletes’ worries about suffering sudden cardiac arrest while competing, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Finkelstein allegedly billed insurers for cardiovascular screening tests that were not medically necessary for athletes and then signed off on the results as normal without ever reviewing them.

“The doctor’s alleged conduct, which ignored a textbook diagnosis of preventable cardiac death, is heinous,” Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said in a statement, also claiming that medical care fraud “doesn’t just steal money, it can steal lives,” according to the AP.

“This defendant allegedly used marketing tactics designed to prey on fears that student athletes could die from sudden cardiac arrest,” Assistant Attorney General from the National Fraud Enforcement Division Colin M. McDonald told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a Wednesday statement. “He then allegedly rubber-stamped test results as normal without reviewing them.”

“As a result, the student was cleared to play and suffered sudden cardiac arrest and died on the basketball court just weeks later,” McDonald continued. “That is why we cannot and will not tolerate fraud in health care.”

Some athletes with no underlying heart problems who were worried about being cleared to compete were required to take tests they did not actually need, the AP reported, citing the indictment. One patient whose test results were falsely approved as being normal later died after his major heart issues were undetected, according to the outlet.