MID-HUDSON Former Dutchess surgeon faces new healthcare fraud charges
A former orthopedic surgeon from Hopewell Junction who had served three years of a 4 1/2 year-sentence in federal prison for health care fraud was arrested and charged Tuesday in an unrelated healthcare fraud case.
Spyros Panos, 49, was charged in federal district court in White Plains with wire fraud, health care fraud and aggravated identity theft for allegedly using another physician’s identity to perform peer reviews of Workers Compensation examination reports while unlicensed to practice medicine and while under federal custody for a separate health care fraud.
The new charges relate to activities that allegedly took place in late 2013, and between November 2016 and October 2017, both before and after Panos was released from federal prison after serving his federal prison term.
Panos pleaded guilty and surrendered his medical license in late 2013, admitting to having operated a multi-year scheme in which he defrauded Medicare, the New York State Insurance Fund, and several private insurance providers by systematically lying about the nature and scope of the surgical procedures he performed. He was also ordered to pay a $250,000 fine and $5 million in restitution for those previous crimes.
The latest case was investigated by New York State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott and Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.