Another psychiatrist convicted on Medicare Fraud charges

A Report from Staen Island, NY

A psychiatrist with a Bulls Head practice who was convicted of Medicaid fraud has been stripped of his license for three years.

The state Health Department took the punitive action yesterday in respect of Dr. Alexander Braver's "criminal acts and his lack of candor about them" during a recent hearing.

Dr. Braver, of Castleton Corners, was convicted in June of attempted grand larceny, sentenced to three years' probation and ordered to pay $28,000 in restitution.

An investigator with the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit posing as a Medicaid patient visited the psychiatrist for less than 10 minutes on several occasions. But Dr. Braver billed Medicaid using the code for 37 or more minutes.

The psychiatrist argued unsuccessfully that his sessions typically lasted for 37 minutes or longer, and that he simply had forgotten to change the billing code.

Dr. Braver also claimed that the state investigator framed him, records said. But the state committee rejected that argument.

"The undercover investigator tricked the Respondent into thinking the investigator was a Medicaid recipient, but he did not trick the Respondent into using the wrong billing code," the state committee wrote in its ruling.

Attempts to reach Dr. Braver, who also maintains a practice in Brooklyn, and his lawyer for comment were unsuccessful yesterday.

The sanction comes after Gov. Eliot Spitzer, formerly state attorney general, vowed a crackdown on Medicaid fraud and upped the state's efforts to nab overbilling offenders. According to the attorney general's Web site, New York state led the nation in Medicaid recoveries. The attorney general's office says it recovered $219 million from people defrauding Medicaid in 2005.