RI Patients 'Shortchanged' By Addiction And Recovery Clinic: DOJ

Two men are facing charges after federal authorities said a clinic meant to provide addiction counseling and treatment services shortchanged patients while billing their insurance providers for services they did not receive.

The Department of Justice announced its findings during a news conference Thursday.

Federal charges have been filed against Recovery Connections of America—a local and regional provider of addiction counseling and treatment services— as well as two of the company's leaders, U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha said.

Its owner, Michael Brier, of Newton, and Mi Ok Bruining, a former employee from Warwick, who worked as a supervisory counselor, were taken into custody Thursday morning and are facing charges relating to what officials believe was a massive fraud scheme.

Cunha said that the scheme "deprived patients of the treatment that they needed and resulted in millions of dollars of insurer billings for addiction treatment and therapy services that were grossly less than claimed."

The scheme impacted roughly 1500 patients who utilized Recovery Connections services, primarily in Rhode Island but also in Massachusetts, Cunha said. Recovery Connections of America is a treatment chain operating in both states.

"The heart of this case is simple," Cunha said.

"As we allege in a criminal complaint filed in federal district court and unsealed today, under the guise of running recovery clinics that supposedly provided much-needed medical and therapy services to men and women in Rhode Island and Massachusetts who needed help in their struggles with addiction, these defendants, in fact, shortchanged their patients, providing them with little or no therapy and support while at the same time billing Medicare and other insurances as if they had."

For example, Cunha said, there were instances where the center billed "for 45-minute therapy sessions when patients were really seen for less than 15 minutes, and in some cases, substantially less than that." In other cases, so many therapy sessions were billed in one day that it would have been physically impossible for a provider to have conducted the sessions.

The pair "are accused of abusing our health care system, cheating taxpayers, and leveraging the opioid crisis to take advantage of those struggling with substance abuse so the company could rake in millions,” Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division said in a news release. “The allegations set forth in this case represent one of the most brazen and egregious examples of health care fraud the FBI has seen here in Rhode Island in recent history, and make no mistake, it is not a victimless crime. Anytime the integrity of our federal health care programs is undermined, we all pay the price through the cost of higher insurance premiums, greater out-of-pocket expenses, and co-pays, and even reduced or lost benefits.”

An opioid rapid response program has been activated to assist patients who have been impacted, according to the FBI.