Former Owner of Ga. Medical Center Indicted for Fraud

David Nahmias, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia; Thurbert Baker, Attorney General for the State of Georgia; Gregory Jones, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation; Vernon Keenan, Director, Georgia Bureau of Investigation; and Russell Hinton, State of Georgia Auditor, announced recently that a federal grand jury has returned an indictment against Aaron M. Hurowitz, 55, of Atlanta, charging him with 80 counts of health care fraud, money laundering, and five counts of obstructing a federal health care fraud investigation.

According to Nahmias:

The indictment charges that beginning at least by March of 1997 and continuing until October of 2002, Hurowitz executed a scheme to defraud the State of Georgia Medicaid Program. Hurowitz is a doctor of osteopathic medicine and the former owner and operator of the Midtown Medical Center, located at 849 Peachtree Street, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308.

The indictment alleges that between 1997 and 2002, Medicaid paid Hurowitz approximately $3,000,000 for physician services he claimed to have rendered to Medicaid patients. The indictment alleges that, in fact, a substantial portion of the claims Hurowitz submitted to Medicaid for reimbursement were fraudulent.

Specifically, the indictment accuses him of engaging in the following fraudulent billing practices: (1) billing for services that were not provided, (2) “upcoding,” or submitting claims for services at higher levels of reimbursement than were supported by the services that were actually provided, and (3) billing for medically unnecessary services, including numerous drug screens.

The indictment further alleges that while Hurowitz was being investigated, both by the Georgia Department of Community Health and by the State Health Care Fraud Control Unit, he falsified numerous medical records in an effort to conceal his fraudulent billing practices.

Finally, the indictment alleges that Hurowitz committed money laundering by transferring title to his Buckhead residence, located at 2740 Carmon On Wesley in Atlanta, to his wife in an effort to conceal the location of some of the proceeds of the alleged health care fraud scheme.

The indictment seeks the forfeiture of Hurowitz’s residence and the office building where Midtown Medical Center was located, as well as a money judgment equal to the amount of proceeds he obtained as a result of the alleged fraud.