Another former Orthofix manager pleads guilty to forging patient medical records to justify reimbursement for procedures involving bone growth products. A federal judge this week handed down a sentence to a former Orthofix (NSDQ:OFIX) employee who admitted to years of patient medical record falsification. Derrick Field, an Orthofix manager between 2005 and 2011, falsified more than 100 Medicare claims that defrauded the agency for more than $250,000 in reimbursement for Orthofix's bone growth stimulator, according to a statement from the U.S. Justice Dept. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro sentenced Field to 5 months of home confinement as part of his 2 years of probation, according to the release. "Field created phony medical chart notes, describing patient visits that did not occur and altered the physicians' actual chart notes by inserting false diagnoses and descriptions of the patients' medical history," according to the DOJ. "Medicare has specific rules describing when it will pay for this device. When Field received bone growth stimulator orders for Medicare patients that did not meet these rules, Field forged the patients' medical records to make it appear as though the order met the rules to induce Medicare to pay for claims that otherwise would not be covered."
