A former New York operations manager was sentenced in federal court in Boston for conspiring to offer and pay kickbacks to doctors in exchange for ordering medically unnecessary brain scans. Timothy Doyle, 45, of Selden, NY was sentenced to 14 months in prison, to be followed by one year of supervised release. The defendant was also ordered to pay $27,225,434 in restitution and $1,102,725 in forfeiture. From at least June 2013 through at least September 2020, Doyle conspired with others, including two managers for a mobile medical diagnostics company that performed transcranial doppler (TCD) scans, to enter into kickback agreements with various doctors.
Doyle and his alleged co-conspirators agreed to offer and pay doctors kickbacks, some in cash and others by check, based on the number of TCD ultrasounds the doctors ordered. Doyle and his alleged co-conspirators created purported rental and administrative service agreements, which on paper made it appear as if doctors were compensated for the TCD company’s use of space and administrative resources of the ordering doctor’s practice based on fair market value and not based on the volume or value of referrals. These agreements were shams that hid the true nature of the arrangement of paying per test. The scheme resulted in fraudulent bills of approximately $70.6 million to Medicare. Medicare paid approximately $27.2 million to the TCD company for the fraudulent claims.