Tecumseh Man Ordered to Serve 51 Months in Prison and Pay Over $4.6 Million in Restitution for Health Care Fraud in Sales of Prosthetics

Lance E. Faulkner, 46, from Tecumseh, Oklahoma, was sentenced by United States District Judge Timothy D. DeGiusti to serve 51 months in prison for health care fraud in connection with sales of prosthetic limbs and components, announced Sanford C. Coats, United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma. In addition, Judge DeGiusti ordered Faulkner to serve two years of supervised release upon his release from prison, serve 104 hours of community service, and pay $4,667,076.27 in restitution.

Faulkner owned and operated Heartland Orthotic Prosthetic Lab Inc., d/b/a Faulkner Prosthetic Designs of Oklahoma LLC (“Heartland”), located in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Heartland was in the business of providing durable medical equipment (DME), specifically, prosthetic limbs and related components. It was alleged that Faulkner billed Medicare and Medicaid for beneficiaries who did not have a prescription for the prosthetics from a licensed physician or other qualified health care provider. Instead, Faulkner submitted physician names and identification numbers to Medicare and Medicaid even though many of those physicians had never treated the patients or prescribed the prosthetic limbs. It was also alleged that Faulkner submitted claims to Medicare and Medicaid for expensive, computerized prosthetic limbs, when the beneficiaries actually received less sophisticated prosthetics or none at all.

Faulkner pled guilty to committing health care fraud on September 9, 2011. The sentencing hearing began on May 17, 2012, where Faulkner received the sentence of 51 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release, and was ordered to perform 104 hours of community service. The hearing regarding the determination of restitution was continued until yesterday, where the court ordered Faulkner to pay $4,667,076.27 in restitution.

This case was the result of an investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Office of Inspector General for the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Maxfield Green.