A Maui physician is facing a federal prison term of up to 10 years at sentencing in December for billing patients’ health insurers for drugs the patients didn’t need, so he could give the drugs to other patients.
Dr. Mark D. Lipetz pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court to health care fraud and acquiring a controlled substance through fraud. He pleaded guilty to a second health care fraud count for billing patients’ insurers for office consultations that he actually conducted over the telephone while he was traveling out of state.
In addition to facing the maximum possible 10-year term for each of the health care fraud counts and maximum four-year term for acquiring a controlled substance through fraud, Lipetz will be ordered to repay Medicare, Medicaid, Hawaii Medical Serv-ices Association and United Healthcare.
Lipetz, 50, the owner, operator and sole medical provider at South Maui Clinic in Kihei, also on Monday turned in his federal license to prescribe drugs, promised to never reapply for one, agreed not to prescribe any drugs, even if a license is not required, and paid a $15,430 forfeiture money judgment.
His lawyer Clarence
Virtue told U.S. Magistrate Judge Kenneth J. Mansfield that Lipetz had already paid off civil penalties the government had assessed against him.
Lipetz told Mansfield that he prescribed medication that was not for the patient, picked up the medication from the pharmacy and gave it to another patient or used the medication as “office samples.”
The medication is the anti-
anxiety drug alprazolam, also known by its brand name Xanax.
The government says
Lipetz operated the scheme to bill one patient for Xanax that he kept or gave to another patient between January 2017 and June 2018.
Federal prosecutors say Lipetz operated the scheme to bill health insurers for office visits that he conducted over the telephone from May 12, 2014, to July 19, 2018. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Sorenson told Mansfield that as part of the scheme, Lipetz filed 277 claims for $41,097 to Medicaid, Medicare, HMSA and UHC, for which he was paid the $15,430 that he agreed to forfeit.
