Gwinnett Clinic Owner Gets Prison Time For Healthcare Fraud

A Gwinnett County man was sentenced Monday in federal court for committing healthcare fraud out of his Norcross-area clinic, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta said in a press release.

Shinkweon Park, 43, of Suwanee, was accused of submitting more than $2 million in false claims for doctor visits, acupuncture and physical therapy to Medicare and Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Park was sentenced by United States District Judge Thomas W. Thrash, Jr., to two years, nine months in prison, and then three years of supervised release. He also was ordered to pay nearly $1.2 million in restitution.

Park, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud on Jan. 6, 2014, owned and operated the LOMA Clinic in Norcross from Nov. 2009 to May 2012, from which the bogus claims orginated. The attorney’s office said the clinic began making false Medicare claims in April 2010 in three ways:

• Park, a licensed acupuncturist, submitted claims for acupuncture treatments, which were not reimbursable by Medicare under any circumstances.
• LOMA billed for massage and physical therapy services that were not performed by licensed physical therapists or physical therapy assistants, as required by Medicare.
• LOMA billed Medicare for office visits purportedly performed by a medical doctor. In fact, the doctor hired by LOMA to serve as medical director of the clinic never examined or treated patients. However, all of LOMA’s claims were submitted using his unique provider code. Similar false claims were made to Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Prosecutors said in a two-year span, LOMA submitted more than $1.6 million in false claims to Medicare, and $475,000 in false claims to Blue Cross Blue Shield.