Bucks Chiropractor Admits Insurance Scam
by KYW's Brad Segall
A Bucks County chiropractor who prosecutors say was running an insurance scam out of a fitness center he owns in Horsham has admitted in court that he defrauded eight insurance companies out of nearly $3 million.
For more than three years, federal prosecutors say, Joseph Lerner of Chalfont, Pa. was submitting fictitious medical bills to insurance companies who paid out millions of dollars.
Assistant US attorney Mary Crawley says Lerner, 50, owned the 24-hour Fitness and Wellness Center and would sell memberships by telling people they could get massages and personal training for just the cost of their health insurance co-pay:
"When he was telling these people this, he knew that these insurance companies would not pay for these kinds of services -- that they were not medically necessary chiropractic services."
He had masseuses and trainers provide the services, then he submitted the bill claiming he provided the services as a licensed chiropractor.
He could spend more than five years behind bars.
