In an update to a July 2, 2024, story, Dr. Ronald David Dean was sentenced to six months in prison, fined $100,000, and ordered to pay $780,509 restitution. Read a Department of Justice press release.
Dr. Ronald David Dean was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud for allegedly helping facilitate about $39 million in fraudulent billing of Medicare and other federal benefits programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. A charging document says he and unnamed co-conspirators devised a scheme in which Dean worked as an independent contractor for the two others and signed doctors’ orders for durable medical equipment (DME) and COVID-19 tests “that were used to submit false and fraudulent claims to government health care programs.” He would electronically sign prescriptions without seeing or communicating with the patients. Read a story from the Daily Montanan.