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Florida Man Sentenced to 10 Years for $97M Health Care Fraud Scheme
A 59-year-old Florida man, Daniel Hurt, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in a massive healthcare fraud scheme that caused over $97 million in losses.
According to the Department of Justice, USAO, Hurt was sentenced in the Western District of Pennsylvania for conspiring to commit healthcare fraud and conspiring to pay and receive unlawful kickbacks. He was also ordered to pay over $97 million in restitution and to forfeit over $30 million and the proceeds from the sale of a yacht.
Hurt’s scheme involved three separate healthcare fraud and illegal kickback schemes. The first scheme targeted TRICARE, a program that provides civilian healthcare benefits for military personnel, and CHAMPVA, a healthcare benefit program run by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The scheme caused a loss of over $18 million to TRICARE and over $450,000 to CHAMPVA.
Hurt and his co-conspirators billed TRICARE, CHAMPVA, and other insurance providers for expensive compounded medications that were not medically necessary. They worked with patient recruiters to solicit patients who had health insurance, and then generated prescriptions containing the patients’ information and a limited selection of expensive compounded medications.
The prescriptions were then referred to a telemedicine service and sent to a pharmacy owned by Hurt and his co-conspirators. The pharmacy would bill patients’ insurance plans thousands of dollars for the compounded medications, and then pay a kickback to Hurt and his co-conspirators, who would in turn pay kickbacks to the patient recruiters. Hurt personally received over $4.2 million from this scheme.
Hurt’s second scheme involved the payment of illegal kickbacks related to cancer genomic testing, which was billed as if the testing were done in the Western District of Pennsylvania. Medicare suffered a loss of over $25 million from this scheme. Hurt and his co-conspirators acquired thousands of cancer genomic testing samples from Medicare beneficiaries located throughout the United States, and then sent them to a hospital in Pennsylvania for billing purposes.
Hurt’s third scheme involved the payment of illegal kickbacks related to telemedicine services. He and his co-conspirators would bill insurance providers for telemedicine services that were not actually provided. This scheme caused a loss of over $10 million to Medicare.
Hurt’s sentencing is a significant blow to the healthcare industry, which has been plagued by fraud and abuse in recent years. The case highlights the need for greater oversight and accountability in the industry, and the importance of holding individuals accountable for their role in healthcare fraud schemes.
Key Facts
- State: Pennsylvania
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: White Collar Crime|Fraud & Financial Crimes|Healthcare
- Source: Official Source ↗
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