The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia announced on June 6 that it has reached a settlement with Dennis Jaffe and Dennis B. Jaffe, DMD, PC, to pay more than $324,000 to settle Medicaid fraud claims.
The settlement states that Jaffe violated the False Claims Act by fraudulently billing Medicaid for tooth extraction procedures and services rendered by a dental assistant when Jaffe was not present in the office, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
Under the terms of the settlement, Jaffe is excluded from all federal and state healthcare programs. In addition to the civil settlement, he also pleaded guilty to a charge of theft from a healthcare benefit program in a separate federal criminal action and was sentenced to serve one year of probation. He agreed to surrender his dental license.
"Citizens rely on dentists to treat all patients in accordance with the approved standards of care," said acting U.S. Attorney John Horn in a statement. "Patients were placed at risk when a dental assistant, without Jaffe present to supervise, performed procedures a licensed dentist must oversee. The defendant also enriched himself at the expense of those patients by marking up the bills to Medicaid for the services he was not performing."
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