CT Fraud Ring: Lawyers, Doctors and Chiros! Oh My!

Add another medical professional from CT to the criminal list.

Jennifer A. Netter, a Bridgeport chiropractor from Danbury, has become the latest health professional to plead guilty to being part of an accident fraud ring. Federal investigators believe that the scam may have cost millions of dollars to the state and several insurance companies.

According to the CT Post, Netter pled guilty on July 20^th to conspiring to make false statements for auto accident victims by exaggerating their injuries and ordering unnecessary treatments.

The chiropractor, who graduated in 2000 from the University of Bridgeport’s College of Chiropractic, was released on a non-surety bond. Netter, who is also pregnant, allowed her chiropractor’s license to become inactive on September 30, 2010.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Schmeisser told U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill during the proceedings that information being provided by people cooperating with the investigation put the losses from the scam into “the millions.”

At least five hundred claims are reported to have been made.

Netter is the third medical professional to plead guilty in the scandal. Francisco R. Carbone, a former Bridgeport doctor and psychiatrist, pleaded guilty on July 19^th to four federal charges relating to the scam. According to the Minuteman News Center and a statement from federal officials, Carbone faces up to 65 years in prison for one count of conspiring to commit mail fraud to defraud insurance carriers, one count of conspiring to commit mail fraud to defraud the State of Connecticut, one count of making a false statement relating to health care matters, and one count of conspiring to distribute controlled substances outside the scope of the usual course of professional practice.

Dr. James W. Marshall, who operates Immediate Medical Care in Monroe, also pled guilty to writing prescriptions at Carbone’s request for narcotic painkillers for patients who were never actually seen.

“As part of the scheme, the co-conspirators fabricated medical records, prescribed unnecessary pain medication, performed unnecessary chiropractic treatment, ordered and billed for diagnostic tests of questionable medical value, and overstated injuries or permanent partial disabilities that were allegedly caused by the accidents,” the statement said.

The investigation is ongoing, and an unnamed Bridgeport lawyer and chiropractor are now being investigated.

Schmeisser accused Netter of falsifying the conditions of patients by exaggerating their range of motion limitations and prescribing an unnecessary array of treatments for six months.

Netter’s actions cost insurers and the state at least $110,000.

Court documents claim that the scam also involved a Bridgeport attorney, whose personal injury clients were receiving some form of state aid. As part of the plot, the attorney would send the clients to the chiropractor’s offices for treatment. Carbone, whose license to practice medicine was pulled back in 2005, would recommend narcotic pain killers, which Marshall would prescribe, and then require the patients to undergo nerve conduction velocity testing at a diagnostic testing center that was owned by the unnamed chiropractor. Each of those tests cost $2,000.

After the lengthy treatments were finished, Carbone would create the final medical reports, which would claim that the patients were suffering from permanent partial disabilities.

The attorney would then use the reports to obtain settlements from insurers including Travelers, Metropolitan, Geico and Progressive.

Since many of the patients were receiving state aid, Connecticut was allowed to seek as much as 50 percent of the settlement. However, documents claim the lawyer, the chiropractor and Carbone would inflate their costs to reduce the amount of money the state could receive.

Schmeisser did note one case in which a patient disagreed with Netter’s range of motion finding as well as the need for additional treatment.