Colorado Springs company pays $400,000 after allegations that they submitted false insurance claims

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado (SADC) announced today that Dynamic Physical Therapy (Dynamic) and its owner, Emad Yassa, agreed to pay the United States $400,000 to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act by falsely billing federal health care programs for aquatic therapy services. 

Dynamic is a physical therapy company that operates two clinics in Colorado Springs, Colorado. 

The SADC says that Dynamic is owned by Mr. Yassa, who also practices as a physical therapist at the Dynamic clinics. Dynamic submitted bills for physical and aquatic therapy services to Medicare and other federal health care programs.

According to the SADC, in 2019 a former employee of Dynamic filed a sealed civil “whistleblower” lawsuit under the False Claims Act alleging that Dynamic, at the direction of Mr. Yassa, was billing Medicare for medically unnecessary physical therapy services and for services that had not actually been provided. 

After the whistleblower complaint was filed, Mr. Yassa signed a “Stipulation and Final Board Order” with the State of Colorado’s Physical Therapy Board  In the stipulation, Mr. Yassa admitted that, from mid-2014 to mid-2017, he “routinely and improperly billed insurance companies, Medicare, and Medicaid for individual aquatic therapy sessions for his patients when they had actually participated in group aquatic therapy sessions,” and also “routinely failed to document in his patients’ records that they had participated in group aquatic therapy sessions.” 

“Medicare monies for physical therapy are intended to support services that restore function, improve mobility, and relieve pain for beneficiaries,” stated Special Agent in Charge Curt L. Muller with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. “Our agency and law enforcement partners readily employ our resources to identify and investigate billing that diverts crucial funds inappropriately from federal health care programs.”

Additionally, the United States uncovered evidence indicating that Dynamic had also submitted false claims to TRICARE, a health care program for uniformed service members, retirees, and their families. The evidence showed that Dynamic had falsely represented to TRICARE that its physical therapy services had been provided by an authorized physical therapy provider but, they had been provided by an unauthorized physical therapy assistant.

“We will aggressively pursue any kind of health care provider who relies on fraud to obtain payments from our federal healthcare programs,” said U.S. Attorney Cole Finegan. “We also appreciate the efforts of whistleblowers who bring fraudulent billing practices to light.”

The claims resolved by the settlement are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability, according to the SADC.