3 Plead Guilty In $6.5M Health Care Fraud Scheme: Feds

CHICAGO — Two suburban health care workers and a personal trainer pleaded guilty Thursday to fraudulent activity that duped at least nine insurance companies out of $6.5 million, according to federal prosecutors. Each were charged with one count of health care fraud for scheming to defraud private insurers for payment of physical therapy and other services that were never rendered.

Sentencing for Inessa Katsnelson, of Glenview, and Maya Yakubovich, of Arlington Heights, is scheduled for May. A date of sentencing for Beatta Kabbani, of Glenview, has not been scheduled.

Katsnelson, 55, also known as "Inessa Blinov," "Inessa Danuchevsky," and "Inna," is a personal trainer and singer who worked out of a gym in Northbrook when prosecutors say she participated in a scheme to defraud private health and auto insurers through multiple entities from 2006 to October 2018. Prosecutors said she and Yakubovich, 52, who worked as a medical claims biller, would recruit friends and family to allow their insurance companies to be falsely charged for services never provided at a number of suburban clinics run by other participants in the scheme.

Yakubovich worked for various health care facilities in Buffalo Grove, Northfield, Prospect Heights, Wheeling, Des Plaines and Glenview.

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Kabbani, 55, who was a licensed physical therapist, president, and secretary of a medical group located in Northfield and Glenview, pleaded guilty in a separate case based on her involvement in a related scheme. Prosecutors said that between September 2011 and November 2016, Kabbani fraudulently submitted claims to insurance companies. These claims falsely represented that certain health care services were provided to patients, though Kabbani knew the services were not actually provided.

The fraudulent claims identified Kabbani, a medical doctor, and another therapist as the service providers on dates when these three providers were not present at the healthcare facility. To substantiate the fraudulent claims, Kabbani created false medical records.

Charges against several co-schemers are still pending, according to prosecutors.