On Thursday, a federal jury convicted Dr. Mark Agresti of health care fraud, per a press release issued by the Department of Justice. The conviction was for one court of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud as well as 11 counts of health care fraud. The prosecution accused the dr. of providing the orders for medical testing for the sake of identifying additional patients that could be referred to addiction treatment facilities in the West Palm Beach area for a kickback.
Dr. Agresti became medical director of the Good Decisions Sober Living facility, the agency explained. As a part of this position, the doctor agreed to provide standing orders for urinalysis testing for resident patients. However, these tests were performed three or four times per week without any medical indication, and were not reviewed or used in further treatment. This resulted in the performance of hundreds of tests per week, with each test costing as much as $6,000 to $9,000. The doctor also performed in office testing and testing at other addiction treatment facilities. The fraudulent billing is estimated at approximately $110 million dollars of medically unnecessary testing.
The doctor is scheduled to be sentenced on April 21, 2022. The maximum penalty fo the charges is 20 years for the health care fraud and wire fraud conspiracy count, and 10 years for each count of health care fraud.
