A physician who ran an addiction treatment practice in Merrillville, Ind., has been sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison after pleading guilty to healthcare fraud.
Johann Farley, MD, admitted to submitting false claims to Medicaid and Medicare, according to an Oct. 3 news release from the Justice Department. The claims misrepresented brief patient visits as complex and extended, though many appointments either lasted only a few minutes or never happened. Many of Dr. Farley's patients relied on him for addiction treatment and he required them to visit his office frequently.
From January 2016 and May 2020, Dr. Farley billed Medicaid and Medicare for more than 7,000 services he did not provide and was paid more than $557,000 for work he never performed.
His sentence will be followed by one year of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $444,000 in restitution to Indiana Medicaid and $113,000 to Medicare.