HARRISBURG – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that on March 22, 2022, Rodney L. Yentzer, age 52, of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and theft of public money for defrauding Medicare, Medicaid, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services between 2016 and 2020. Yentzer also agreed to pay $3,869,571.55 in restitution for these offenses.
According to United States Attorney John C. Gurganus, Yentzer agreed with others to defraud Medicare and Medicaid by submitting medically unnecessary urine drug tests for patients at clinics he controlled, including a group of pain clinics known as Pain Medicine of York or “PMY” (also known as All Better Wellness).
PMY billed Medicare for more than $10 million in urine drug tests from mid-2017 through the end of 2019. As a result, Medicare paid out over $4 million for these urine drug tests. Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program was also billed for urine drug tests during this same time period. The urine drug tests ordered by PMY were sent to an in-house laboratory at PMY whenever possible. As a result, when medically unnecessary tests were billed to Medicare, the proceeds from them went to PMY itself.
Search warrants were executed at PMY’s various locations in November 2019, and PMY ceased operations soon after that.
Thereafter, in a separate offense, Yentzer sought and received over $191,000 in U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stimulus money that was intended for health care providers who had health care related expenses and lost revenues attributable to COVID-19. Yentzer obtained these funds in April 2020, even though he had resigned from PMY the prior month and PMY had been closed since late 2019. Yentzer used these funds on various things unrelated to COVID-19 relief, including personal expenses.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ravi Romel Sharma and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Smultkis are prosecuting the case.
The maximum penalty under federal law for conspiracy to commit health care fraud is 10 years’ imprisonment. The maximum penalty law for conspiracy to commit money laundering is 20 years’ imprisonment. The maximum penalty law for theft of public money is 10 years’ imprisonment. These charges may also carry a fine and a term of supervised release following imprisonment. A sentence following a finding of guilt is imposed by the Judge after consideration of the applicable federal sentencing statutes and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.
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