Indictments served in probe of psychiatric hospital
Indictments served in probe of psychiatric hospital
Even as OIG prepares to crack down on fraud at community mental health centers, a special task force has nailed the owners of a Naples, FL. psychiatric hospital with an 89-count indictment. Gary Centafanti, the former administrator of the Willough at Naples psychiatric hospital, and his wife Cathy, the former administrator of the Crisis Response Team in Tampa, were charged with paying kickbacks for referrals as well as money laundering and misapplying hospital funds.
Cathy Centafanti’s position in the Crisis Response Team gave her a chance to refer psychiatric patients to her husband’s hospital, according to a statement by Charles Wilson, US Attorney for the Middle District of Florida. Wilson claims kickbacks from the hospital were then funneled through another business owned by a friend of the couple. About $953,000 in kickbacks allegedly were made to secure Medicare referrals worth $16.5 million.
Particularly interesting is the dummy management services agreement allegedly devised by the Centafantis. Wilson says the couple used the agreement to convince the hospital’s parent company that the business run by their confederate should be paid for providing Crisis Response Team services to the Willough. Ironically, an outside attorney found the agreement fell within the anti-kickback safe harbors established by OIG.
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