Ohio Podiatrist Scammed Medicare, Medicaid, DOJ Says

MENTOR, OH — A podiatrist with offices in Mentor will spend three years in prison for fraudulently billing Medicare and Medicaid, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday. Robert Rosenstein was accused of scamming the agencies out of nearly $1.2 million.

Rosenstein, 65, from Highland Heights, was sentenced to 33 months in prison and ordered to pay $450,000 in restitution. He previously pleaded guilty to one count of health care fraud, the DOJ said.

Rosenstein ran Affiliated Podiatrists, with offices on Mentor Avenue. He began work in 1984, according to court documents. However, in 2013, he was convicted of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and was suspended from the Medicare program and barred from billing Medicare for three years, because of the conviction.

In 2014, Rosenstein closed Affiliated Podiatrists and filed articles of incorporation for a new company called Community Foot and Ankle of Mentor (CFAM), located at his old offices in Mentor, court documents said.

As the de facto owner of the practice, Rosenstein filed an enrollment application with Medicare. The application was signed by someone other than Rosenstein and did not list Rosenstein as being owner, or having a controlling interest in the practice, court documents said.

Then, in 2016, Rosenstein was barred from participation in the Medicaid program.

Despite these prohibitions and suspensions, Rosenstein defrauded the Medicaid and Medicare programs over a nearly four-year span from July 2014 to May 2018, court documents said. He did this by providing medical services at CFAM, for Medicare and Medicaid, and then billing the services under a different doctor's name, court documents said. Rosenstein knew he was barred from participation in Medicare or Medicaid, according to the court documents.

Over the four-year span laid out in the court documents, Rosenstein was accused of fraudulently billing approximately $970,000 to Medicare and $220,000 to Medicaid.

Rosenstein was investigated by the FBI, Health and Human Services - Office of Inspector General, and the Ohio Attorney General's Medicare Fraud Control Unit. He was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Miller.