Cumming Doctor Sentenced For $1.1 Million in Healthcare Fraud

CUMMING, GA — A Cumming doctor has been sentenced to years in federal prison for committing more than $1 million worth of healthcare fraud.

Robert E. Windsor, 55, of Cumming, Georgia, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Amy Totenberg to three years, two months in prison and three years of supervised release.

He was ordered to serve 200 hours of community service, and to pay $1,169,580 in restitution to health insurers.

In March, Windsor pleaded guilty to passing off surgery monitoring to an unauthorized assistant, then lying about it.

He received $1.1 million for services he claimed to have performed but never did.

"Patients rightly expect that their physicians will protect their health and safety," said U.S. Attorney John A. Horn in a news release. "Windsor violated that basic trust and placed numerous surgery patients at risk at a time when they were most vulnerable and in need of care."

According to Horn, Windsor contracted with American Neuromonitoring Associations, a Maryland company, to provide a medical service called intra-operative monitoring.

That's a procedure in which a doctor monitors a patient's nerve and spinal cord activity during surgery "to reduce potential adverse effects to the patient."

He was supposed to be providing real-time monitoring via an online platform and giving a final report at the conclusion of each surgery. Instead, prosecutors say that, between 2010 and 2013, Windsor would assign the monitoring to a medical assistant who was not a doctor and not permitted to provide the service under his contract.

The medical assistant would log on using Windsor's credentials and Windsor would submit final reports falsely claiming that he had conducted the monitoring.

On several occasions, prosecutors say, Windsor billed ANA for monitoring that took place while he was traveling on international flights.

Investigators uncovered the fraud through analysis of Medicare billing data and tips made to a Department of Health and Human Services complaint line.