United States v. Advantage Medical Transport Inc.

698 F. App'x 680
Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit·Decided June 21, 2017·No. 15-3853·Unpublished·Cited by 3 cases

Opinions

[682] OPINION *

NYGAARD, Circuit Judge.

Although there may be no such thing as a free lunch, there is such a thing as a free ride—at least in an ambulance under the Medicare program. That is to say, Medicare Part B covers ambulance transportation for beneficiaries to or from a hospital, nursing home, or medical treatment facility when other methods of transport would put the participant’s health at risk. Nichole Medical Equipment & Supply, Inc. v. TriCenturion, Inc., 694 F.3d 340, 342 n. 2 (3d Cir. 2012) (citation omitted).1 The costs associated with these transports have increased exponentially: in 2012, Medicare Part B paid $5.8 billion for such transportation, which was almost double the amount it paid in 2003. See Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, OEI-09-12-00351, Inappropriate Payments and Questionable Billing For Medicare Part B Ambulance Transports (September 2015). Available at https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-09-12-00351.pdf. Along with increased costs, ambulance transport claims have long been a vector for fraud and abuse of the Medicare system. Id. An investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General revealed, for example, that Medicare paid more than $50 million to ambulance companies for improper rides for beneficiaries in the first six months of 2012 alone. Id.

The appeal we consider today has its origin in an investigation and prosecution of fraudulent ambulance transport claims in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area.2 The Appellants pleaded guilty to certain fraud charges and do not challenge their plea on appeal. They do, however, raise various challenges to their sentences.

I.

A. The Facts of the Fraud

Appellant Serge Sivchuk was the sole owner and president of Appellant Advantage Medical Transport, Inc. Advantage provided nonemergency ambulance transportation to, among others, qualifying Medicare beneficiaries who needed rides to regularly scheduled dialysis appointments. Medicare approved and authorized Advantage to provide those services and to be reimbursed for them. In August of 2010, Highmark Medical Medicare Services, Medicare’s contractor, informed Sivchuk that it was conducting an audit of some of Advantage’s claims for reimbursement. Highmark requested that Sivchuk produce supporting documentation for forty ambulance transports that took place in August of 2010 and involved seven different Medicare beneficiaries. The supporting documents Highmark wanted to see were “trip sheets,” which emergency medical technicians (EMT) prepared while working on a particular run. These reports typically in-[683] eluded a narrative section completed by the accompanying EMT in which he or she noted the patient’s physical condition, ambulatory abilities at the time of transport, and any other relevant observations and/or concerns. Sivchuk turned the requested trip sheets over to Highmark and High-mark paid these claims a few months later. It was later revealed that fourteen of the forty trip sheets had been fraudulently altered to remove references indicating the patients had been ambulatory when they were transported by ambulance.

In June of 2011, law enforcement officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Inspector General’s Office searched Advantage’s corporate office. A folder labeled “Rewritten Trip Sheets” was discovered in a cabinet behind Siv-chuk’s desk. In actuality, the folder did not contain rewritten trip sheets, but the original versions of the trip sheets previously submitted to Highmark. Upon comparison, it became apparent that these original reports contained references to patients being able to walk, stand, or otherwise move on their own and that these references had been omitted from the trip sheets that were submitted to Highmark.

A subsequent grand jury investigation revealed that Sivchuk had ordered some of his employees to instruct the EMTs who wrote the fourteen questionable trip sheets that those reports had been lost and that the EMTs needed to rewrite them. And, when they did so, the EMTs were to omit any references to the patients’ ambulatory abilities. Some of these EMTs refused to alter their reports, so Sivchuk had another employee rewrite the trip sheets and forge the objecting EMTs’ signatures. In January of 2012, Sivchuk, Advantage, and another Advantage employee, were charged with twenty-nine counts of health care fraud. The indictment alleged that they had billed Medicare for unnecessary ambulance transports for twenty-six dialysis patients from 2007 until 2011. Advantage pleaded guilty to fourteen counts of making false statements in health care matters, in violation of 18 U.S.G. § 1035 and 2. For his part, Sivchuk pleaded guilty to one count of the same offense.

B. The Sentences

After the Appellants pleaded guilty, the probation office prepared a presentence report (PSR). The PSR pegged Medicare’s amount of financial loss at $740,300 for both Advantage and Sivchuk. This amount put Sivchuk’s total offense level at 19. His criminal history level was a Category I, which resulted in a guideline range of 30-37 months in prison and a fine ranging from $6,000 to $1,480,620. The range of Advantage’s fine was calculated to be between $592,248 and $1,184,496.

Advantage and Sivchuk objected to the calculation- of the amount of loss and the District Court held two hearings on this question. After taking testimony from witnesses, physicians, and other experts, the District Court concluded that only the loss attributable to five of the twenty-six beneficiaries would—either in whole or in part—be considered in the loss calculation. We will explore in greater detail how the District Court arrived at this number momentarily. But, based on this determination, the probation office revised the PSRs, and reduced Sivchuk’s total offense level to 15. His sentencing range was reduced to 18 to 24 months imprisonment and the range of his fine was recalculated to between $4,000 and $388,757. Advantage’s fine was reduced to a range of $155,502.80 to $311,005.60. The Government also asked for a two level increase in Sivchuk’s offense level based on an “abuse of trust” under § 3B1.3. The District Court agreed to apply this enhancement, which raised [684] Sivchuk’s total offense level to 17 and increased his guideline range to 24 to 80 months imprisonment. The District Court fined Advantage $250,000. Sivchuk was sentenced to 24-months imprisonment and fined $800,000.

II.

Advantage and Sivchuk timely appealed. We have jurisdiction to hear this appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. The Appellants argue that the District Court mistakenly calculated the amount of loss, erred by finding that Sivchuk occupied a “position of trust,” as contemplated by § 3B1.2 of the sentencing guidelines, and that Siv-chuk’s sentence was unreasonable. We begin with the arguments questioning the District Court’s loss calculations.

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United States v. Advantage Medical Transport Inc., 698 F. App'x 680 (3d Cir. 2017).

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