News for Lobbyist in Texas: North Texas Doctor Sentenced to Prison for Health Care Fraud
Dr. Daniel K. Leong, previous owner of South Dallas Community Medical Center in Dallas, was sentenced yesterday to serve four years in federal prison. Dr. Leong was also ordered to pay $865,163 in restitution for Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Leong’s coconspirator Cal Graves, who worked as a physician assistant at the medical center, plead guilty to the same crime and was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay $294,946.
It seems that many patients at the Dallas medical center were prescribed controlled substances in exchange for their participation in unnecessary diagnostic tests. Patients would exaggerate their pain level to gain access to prescription narcotics. Dr. Leong benefitted from these exaggeration because it gave him an excuse to order more tests. The patients were hardly ever referred to specialists for their ongoing pain, and this pattern was repeated over and over without any real treatment for patients.
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