Butler Moultrie, who operated and managed a halfway house for recovering drug addicts in Fort Lauderdale Florida, was sentenced to almost 3 years in prison yesterday. This is part of the ongoing trials against those associated with the American Therapeutic Corporation(ATC) Medicare scam.

Moultrie is 46 years old and plead guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud. In addition to 33 months in prison, Moultrie was also sentenced to pay around $800,000 in fines and serve 3 years of probation after release.

As part of his plea agreement, Moultrie stated that he referred Medicare patients from his half-way house to American Therapeutic Corporation for their partial hospitalization program, or PHP, which was billed as an intense in-house mental health program. He went on to admit that he received kickbacks for the patients he referred, he was aware of the Medicare scam being preformed by ATC, and that he refferred the patients despite being aware that no doctor had prescribed this treatment.

The investigation into American Therapeutic Corporation and other companies, such as the American Sleep Institute, revealed a wide spread Medicare fraud scam, which included patient recruiters, doctors, and owners/operators of halfway houses in the Florida area. ATC, which s related to Medlink Professional Management Group, was responsible for, according to Federal Prosecutors, over $200 million in fraudulent Medicare billing.

Moultrie is the eleventh defendant to be tried as part of the American Therapeutic Corporation Medicare scam, with eight of these individuals being sentenced to prison. More trials are scheduled as the case against ATC and those involved with this Medicare fraud continues.