Shreveport chiropractor pleads guilty to health care fraud

Published: 2009-10-23 21:06:01
Author: Kelsey McKinney | Shreveport Times | October 10, 2009

A Shreveport chiropractor pleaded guilty Friday afternoon to two counts of health care fraud, avoiding a federal trial Tuesday at which he would have faced 72 counts of health care fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, according to the U.S. attorney's office for the Western District of Louisiana.

Dr. John Allen Thompson, 43, will be sentenced Jan. 27. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on each count for submitting fraudulent billing claims to State Farm Insurance and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Flanagan said.

"Because it is a scheme to defraud, he will be held accountable for the entire scheme. Each individual act is an additional count, but it's the same scheme."

Thompson billed Blue Cross Blue Shield for whirlpool treatments in a Hubbard Tank, but no such tank exists or ever has at any clinic owned or operated by Thompson, a federal lawsuit states. This resulted in 20 counts of health care fraud.

Fifty-two counts of health care fraud associated with billings to State Farm Insurance resulted from recorded visits to Thompson's chiropractic practice. "Undercover law enforcement officers posed as patients, received treatment and State Farm was billed," the lawsuit states.

In these instances, Thompson was suspected of "up-coding," treating patients one way but billing State Farm Insurance for a different and more expensive treatment.

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