Medical Equipment Company VP and CFO Pleads Guilty to Insurance Fraud

The vice president and chief financial officer of a medical equipment company with offices in Atlanta has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud for a scheme in which he exaggerated claims on compression stockings to get higher health insurance payments.

Daniel K. Lane, Jr. of Compass Healthcare was responsible for billing insurance companies such as Medicare and Blue Cross for compression stocking equipment required by patients with edema, chronic venous insufficiency, and other related conditions.

Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia allege that instead of properly billing patients’ insurance companies, Lane and office manager Holly Keisker set up a fraudulent billing system that automatically charged insurers for the most expensive compression stocking possible. This “upcoding” generated higher payouts from the insurers.

Compass allegedly provided fake diagnoses on insurance claim forms to fool insurers into thinking the most expensive compression stockings were legitimate and used vague “blanket” diagnosis codes to support insurance payments for patients who did not actually need compression stockings. Lane and Keisker also submitted altered or completely fabricated prescriptions from doctors for the expensive stockings.

Both Lane and Keisker have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. Lane will receive his sentence on Nov. 19, while Keisker will be sentenced on Dec. 10.