Frederick Scott Dattel, Medicare Fraud, Missouri 2018

Kansas City Pediatrician Pleads Guilty to $300,000 Medicare Fraud Scheme

A Kansas City-area pediatrician pleaded guilty in federal court today to his role in causing fraudulent Medicare claims to be submitted for more than 1,000 beneficiaries for medications and equipment they didn’t need, which was part of a larger nationwide scheme to defraud Medicare.

“A physician abused his position of trust to cause fraudulent claims to be filed for more than 1,000 Medicare beneficiaries,” said U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore. “This theft of public funds was part of a larger nationwide scheme that includes prosecutions in other districts where additional perpetrators are being held accountable for their criminal actions.”

Frederick Scott Dattel, 57, of Leawood, Kansas, waived his right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Brian C. Wimes to a federal information that charges him with making a false statement related to a health care matter. Dattel, a licensed medical doctor with a specialty in pediatrics, owns and operates his own medical practice, Kansas City Pediatrics, L.L.C., in Kansas City, Mo.

Between August 2017 and February 2018, Dattel worked as a physician for RediDoc, L.L.C., a commercial telemedicine company. RediDoc’s owners unlawfully profited by paying kickbacks and bribes to doctors so those doctors would sign high volumes of expensive prescriptions and durable medical equipment orders that were not medically necessary.

The scheme involved marketers identifying Medicare beneficiaries to target for expensive medications and durable medical equipment, and persuading beneficiaries to try the medications and medical equipment – even when the beneficiary’s need for those items was not clear and was not discussed with the beneficiary’s doctor. The marketers then transmitted the beneficiaries’ medical information to RediDoc along with the proposed prescriptions or doctors’ orders for medical equipment that included pre-marked check-off boxes for particular drugs or equipment that would yield large reimbursements.

The total amount of fraudulent Medicare claims submitted by Dattel was over $300,000. By pleading guilty today, Dattel admitted that, while working as a physician for RediDoc, he unlawfully caused false and fraudulent Medicare claims to be submitted for prescriptions for durable medical equipment and compounds without examining or speaking to patients and without any physician-patient relationship.

Mandatory Facts: Defendant: Frederick Scott Dattel, Exact criminal charges: Making a false statement related to a health care matter, City: Kansas City, State: Missouri, Date: 2018, Sentence: None, Amount: $300,000.

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