Tinley Park Doctor Gets 40 Months for Medicare Fraud

TINLEY PARK, IL — A former Tinley Park doctor was sentenced Friday to 40 months in federal prison for his part in a case of health care fraud.

Banio Koroma, 67, was also ordered to pay $1.5 million in restitution for a scheme that defrauded Medicare.

A federal jury earlier this year convicted Koroma on two counts of health care fraud and two counts of making false statements related to health care matters, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Koroma was employed with Mobile Doctors, which contracted with physicians to arrange in-home visits for patients in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and other states, prosecutors said. The now-defunct Mobile Doctors was located at 3319 N. Elston until it closed in 2013.

Patients were told they were confined to their homes when they weren’t actually homebound and didn’t need the services Koroma ordered, prosecutors said. The certification for one of the patients affected, who was actually able to leave her home and visit her primary-care physician’s office, cost Medicare more than $45,000, CBS reports.

The investigation into the company also led to the conviction of its CEO Dike Ajiri. Ajiri pleaded guilty last year to "fraudulently increasing bills, and defrauding Medicare and the Railroad Retirement Board of $1.854 million."