Boca Raton doctor pleads guilty to insurance plan fraud in sober-residence situations
2 min read![Max Citrin appears in court with attorneys Wednesday, March 11, 2020, charged with multiple counts of insurance fraud. [LANNIS WATERS/palmbeachpost.com]](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2021/07/12/NPPP/cccba2e4-5e65-4732-8bdb-d9de5cf6ba02-031120_Max_Citrin_Fraud_2A.JPG?width=660&height=472&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
BOCA RATON — A Boca Raton medical professional has pleaded guilty to 4 counts of defrauding three insurance policy firms of extra than $17 million, the Palm Beach front County State Attorney’s Workplace introduced Monday.
Max Louis Citrin entered the plea for the duration of a court docket hearing Monday ahead of Circuit Choose Kirk Volker. Beneath the conditions of the plea, Citrin will serve 30 months in prison, followed by 5 years of probation.
Citrin, 38, also will relinquish his professional medical licenses in Florida and California, as nicely as pay out $2.5 million in restitution to the Cigna, Blue Cross Blue Defend and Humana insurance plan organizations.
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Job force investigated doctor’s get the job done with sober-dwelling clients
His conviction is the 75th credited to the Palm Beach front County Sober Residences Activity Power, which in November 2017 started investigating complaints that Citrin was improperly prescribing managed substances to citizens of sober households.
He was arrested in March 2020 and rearrested in February on supplemental costs linked to the investigation.
“Dr. Citrin produced a mockery of his Hippocratic oath by reducing and pasting the exact signs or symptoms and very important signs for most of his clients so he could fraudulently monthly bill insurers hundreds of thousands of bucks,” Palm Beach County Condition Lawyer Dave Aronberg reported Monday in geared up remarks.
Explained defense attorney Jordan Lewin: “We are pleased that we ended up capable to solve the make a difference in the style that we did. Max is searching forward to putting this whole make any difference at the rear of him and moving forward with his life.”
Citrin crammed a fraudulent prescription for an undercover officer
Investigators alleged that Citrin routinely billed insurance coverage corporations as much as $20,000 per client for allergy screening and treatment options that were being pointless.
In November 2017, two witnesses instructed a detective assigned to the task force that Citrin wrote narcotic prescriptions for their boyfriends in trade for recruiting drug-restoration people to his apply.
Authorities say he later gave a Xanax prescription to an undercover officer who hardly ever complained of allergy problems.
A overview of the 78 patients’ documents identified that Citrin cut and pasted almost similar diagnoses, signs or symptoms, backgrounds and vital indicators on claims kinds, investigators mentioned.
There were 227 clients concerned in the fraudulent remedy and billing scheme, quite a few of whom in no way complained about or endured from allergies of any form, authorities mentioned.
The insurance businesses reportedly paid Citrin in excess of $2.4 million for the claims. Authorities alleged that between 2015 and 2018 Citrin submitted fraudulent claims totaling in excessive of $17 million.
@JuliusWhigham
