Slope Doctor Accused of Scamming Medicare

A Park Slope doctor is accused of robbing health care funds to the tune of $250,000, federal officials said.

Eighth Avenue neurologist Dr. Leonard Langman double-billed Medicare and other workers-compensation programs, as well as falsely billed for services patients did not receive and for services more costly than those actually performed, according to a complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn federal court.

Between January 2006 and December 2009, Langman fraudulently raked in over $250,000, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in press release.

The neurologist, whose office is near Union Street, was charged along with 111 other medical professionals on Thursday in a nationwide crackdown on Medicaid and Medicare fraud. He was released on $150,000 bail and back in his office Friday evening.

“Many of the allegations in the indictment occurred many, many years ago. It just strikes me why law enforcement waited so long if the case is that good,” Langman’s attorney, James DiPietro, told Patch.

The Brooklyn-based attorney said that Langman pleaded not guilty. Langman himself did not return a phone call.

“He is looking forward to the day in court where he can defend himself,” DiPietro said.

Langman was previously convicted of falsifying business records in 1996 and was suspended from servicing the New York State Worker’s Compensation Board, which provides benefits to self-insured employers and private insurance companies, for three years.

In the most recent allegations against Langman, his office allegedly billed both Blue Cross Blue Shield and the Office Workers Compensation Programs for all four visits made by a patient with a sprained ankle. Neither the patient, nor the benefit providers had any idea.

Yet another patient working as a confidential source for the feds visited the office between June and September 2009 with complaints of neck pain caused by lifting a box of paper at work. Though the patient claimed to feel no lasting pain, in an initial doctor’s visit – lasting only two minutes – Langman diagnosed the patient as “completely disabled.” 

He proceeded to bill the patient’s benefit provider for an office visit and a nerve-related exam that never even took place, and provided the patient with a disability letter despite a lack of any health problems, court documents said.

Former employees testified that Langman would see a record number of patients in a record amount of time – treating between 40 and 50 patients each day for between five and 15 minutes, according to the complaint. However, he would bill benefits providers for visits lasting 40 minutes and up.

“The allegations are regarding one patient," stated DiPietro. " Dr. Langman has treated hundreds, if not thousands of satisfied patients in his years."

On Friday evening, bystanders pondered the nature of the accusations against Langman.

“Sometimes Medicare fraud is fraud, sometimes it’s problems with documentation and accounting,” said Dr. Kenneth Bromberg, Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at The Brooklyn Hospital Center in Fort Greene, whose wife runs the pediatric practice next door to Langman’s office.

“In court, they’ll figure out which one it is,” he said.