Photos: Medicare Fraud Criminals, Medical Scams Scams & Fraud

A Rogues Gallery of Medicare Fraudsters

Doctors and businesses across the country have been charged with scams

Here are five doctors and health care business operators who were sent to prison for : Salomon Melgen, a South Florida eye doctor, was sentenced to 17 years in prison in February for stealing $73 million from Medicare. The government said Melgen persuaded to undergo sometimes-painful tests and procedures for phantom illnesses, all to defraud Medicare. He was convicted of 67 crimes. Earnest Gibson III, president of a Houston hospital, was sentenced to 45 years in prison in 2015 for his role in a $158 million Medicare fraud scheme. Gibson and others ran a conspiracy in which Medicare was billed for bogus treatments for people suffering from mental illness. Matthew Kolodesh, of Churchville, Pa., was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2014 after being found guilty of defrauding Medicare through his home hospice business. He was ordered to pay $16.2 million in restitution. As part of the scheme, nurses routinely altered patient files and rewrote nursing documentation to make clients appear sicker than they were. Margarita Grishkoff, of Charlotte, N.C., was sentenced to nearly six years in prison in 2014 after pleading guilty to submitting $28.3 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare. Grishkoff, a disbarred attorney, filed Medicare claims based on information bought from recruiters. Noble Ezukanma, a doctor from Fort Worth, Texas, was sentenced in September to more than 16 years in prison and ordered to pay back the government $34 million for his part in a $50 million Medicare fraud scheme. He was busted for creating fake bills for medical treatments.

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