Houston: Hospital administrator, Starsky Bomer, gets 10 years for Medicare fraud scheme
Hospital administrator, Starsky Bomer, 46, of Houston, Texas, was sentenced this week to 10 years in prison for his role in a $16 million Medicare fraud scheme involving partial hospitalization programs.
photo/ Nick Youngson
In 2018, Bomer was convicted of one count of conspiracy to receive health care kickbacks, two counts of violating the Anti-Kickback Statute, and one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud from a November 2017 superseding indictment.
According to evidence presented at trial, from 2011 until February 2013, Bomer and his co-conspirators engaged in a scheme to defraud Medicare by submitting to Medicare, through Atrium Medical Center (Atrium) and Pristine Healthcare (Pristine), approximately $16 million in false and fraudulent claims for partial hospitalization program (PHP) services. A PHP is a form of intensive outpatient treatment for severe mental illness.
The evidence presented at trial showed that Bomer, the hospitals’ chief financial officer and chief operating officer, orchestrated a scheme by which he and others paid illegal bribes and kickbacks to group home owners and patient recruiters in exchange for sending Medicare patients to Atrium and Pristine’s PHPs. Bomer disguised bribes and kickbacks as salary payments and transportation payments to group home owners in exchange for patient referrals. In addition, evidence presented at trial showed that Bomer knew that many of the patients admitted to Atrium and Pristine’s PHPs did not qualify for and were never provided legitimate partial hospital services.
Bomer was also ordered to pay $6,277,575.77 in restitution and to forfeit $158,260.
