A Southern California doctor was sentenced Tuesday to 37 months in prison for his role in a $2.8 million fraud scheme in which Medicare was billed for unneeded services, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.
John Thropay, 75, of Arcadia was the medical director for several hospice companies, including Blue Sky Hospice Inc. in Van Nuys. From October 2014 to March 2016, Thropay certified terminal illnesses that patients did not have in order to bill Medicare for hospice services, officials said.
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According to the indictment, the owners of Blue Sky paid recruiters illegal kickbacks in exchange for referring “beneficiaries,” or patients. These recruiters paid the patients approximately $300 to $400 of the kickbacks for every month they remained on hospice care with Blue Sky.
The owners paid physicians, like Thropay, to evaluate the patients. He conducted cursory examinations and did not consult medical records before certifying them as terminally ill, most of which were not. In 2015, Thropay was the attending provider for the most hospice claims paid by Medicare in the country.
In February, Thropay was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and four counts of health care fraud by the Central District of California and faced a maximum penalty of 10 years for each count, according to a DOJ news release.
