A federal jury convicted a physician Friday for a $5 million healthcare fraud scheme, officials stated
According to evidence presented at trial, Frederick Gooding, 71, of Wilmington, Delaware, owned and operated a now-shuttered physiatry and pain management practice in Washington, D.C.
Gooding was convicted of 11 counts of healthcare fraud. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 26 and faces up to 10 years on each count.
Between 2015 and 2018, Gooding fraudulently billed Medicare more than $5 million for injections he did not perform or did not provide as billed, including complicated spinal injections for which he did not own the necessary equipment.
With assistance from the Washington, D.C. Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the FBI and HHS-OIG investigated the case.
Trial Attorneys Jil Simon and Emily Gurskis of the Justice Department’s Fraud Section are prosecuting the case. Assistant Chiefs Jillian Willis and Scott Armstrong were also involved in the prosecution.
The Fraud Section leads the Criminal Division’s efforts to combat healthcare fraud through the Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program.
Since March 2007, this program, comprised of 15 strike forces operating in 25 federal districts, has charged more than 5,000 defendants who collectively have billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $24 billion.