Leonel Palatnik, the 42-year-old co-owner of Panda Conservation Group LLC, was sentenced to 82 months in prison for his role in a $73 million Medicare fraud scheme. The scheme, executed during the COVID-19 pandemic, involved paying kickbacks to telemedicine providers to authorize medically unnecessary genetic tests, exploiting temporary telehealth regulation amendments meant to facilitate healthcare access during the pandemic.
Palatnik and his co-conspirators, including Michael Stein, owner of 1523 Holdings LLC, created a sham contract for IT and consultation services to disguise the kickbacks. Stein’s company then arranged for telehealth providers to access Medicare beneficiaries, who were referred for expensive and medically unnecessary genetic tests at Panda’s laboratories. The providers, in return, billed Medicare for telehealth consultations that often never occurred.
This scheme was part of a broader crackdown on healthcare fraud by the Department of Justice, targeting pandemic-related fraud. The FBI’s Miami and Dallas Field Offices, along with the HHS Office of the Inspector General, investigated the case. Palatnik’s actions not only defrauded Medicare but also misused resources meant for genuine patient care during a critical time.
For more details, you can refer to the official DOJ announcements and detailed coverage by Fierce Healthcare and Healthcare IT News (Justice Gov) (Justice Gov) (FierceHealthcare) (Healthcare IT News) (Insurance News | InsuranceNewsNet).
-Nguyễn Bách Khoa-