Double your felony,
Double your sums.
Oops we got caught,
Now we’re jailhouse bums.
The second of the felonious, guilty-pleading “twins,” Semyon Narasov and Andrew Hillman, was sentenced on May 29, 2020, for his role in twin healthcare fraud schemes, one referred to as the Forest Park scheme after the now-defunct hospital group of that name, and the other the NextHealth scheme after the lab company “arrangement” controlled by the “twins.”
Narasov, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to conspiracy to commit money laundering in the NextHealth case and to conspiracy to pay and receive healthcare bribes and kickbacks in the Forest Park case, was sentenced on May 29 to 76 months in federal prison.
Narasov admitted that Forest Park paid the “twins” $190,000 to refer patients to Forest Park or to surgeons with privileges at the facility, and that they submitted phony invoices to conceal the bribes, which were funneled through a shell entity.
Narasov also admitted that while at NextHealth, he and his “twin brother” submitted fraudulent claims to private and government health insurance providers for prescriptions that were medically unnecessary, prescriptions for misbranded, non-FDA-approved drugs, and prescriptions prescribed by physicians who were receiving kickbacks, all while falsely claiming they had charged patients co-pays.
Hillman, too, pleaded guilty in 2018 and made similar admissions. Hillman was sentenced in December 2019 to 66 months in federal prison.
Hillman, formerly of Dallas, now resides at Federal Correctional Institute Texarkana. Where Narasov will serve time is, as of yet, not known.
In addition to the large slice of schadenfreude, you can take away more than a few valuable lessons from Narasov and Hillman at a cost far lower than 66 to 76 months of your life:
“Sharp” marketers and other scheme promoters, even hospital CEOs (how shocking!), will tell you that their lawyers have thoroughly vetted the arrangement. Don’t take their, or their lawyers’, word for it. They’ll be going to prison themselves for themselves, so they won’t be doing your prison time for you.
Over the years, I’ve kept clients out of what would surely have been the slammer in connection with schemes as diverse as:
- paying for “marketing” (marketing being a euphemism for kickbacks);
- paying (or receiving) “rent” for supply closets (“rent” being a euphemism for kickbacks);
- providing “employees” to ASCs (“employees” being a euphemism for kickbacks);
- receiving “fees” to prescribe pain medication over the phone to strangers (“fees” being a euphemism for kickbacks);
- and, well, other schemes that are so bizarre they don’t even pass the laugh test.
Do yourself a favor. Think for yourself and get competent legal advice for yourself.