THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 13, 1995 TAG: 9501130494
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Short : 36 lines
A Virginia Beach psychiatrist pleaded guilty Thursday to defrauding health insurers of $35,500 from January 1990 through December 1991.
The doctor, Howard S. Weiss, pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 when he is sentenced April 11 in U.S. District Court.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan M. Salsbury said Weiss billed the insurers for patient-counseling sessions that never occurred or whose length was inflated.
The defrauded insurers included Medicaid, Medicare and CHAMPUS, the health insurance agency for military families.
Weiss, 40, is the third psychiatrist to plead guilty to overbilling patients in the past two years. All shared offices at the Panic Control Center at 1004 First Colonial Road, records show.
In February 1994, Dr. R. Jeremy A. Stowell, 52, pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud. In October 1993, Dr. Harvey L. Nissman pleaded guilty to the same charge.
Stowell and Nissman were both charged with bilking insurers of more than $30,000. They were fined, sentenced to six months of home confinement and to community service, records show.
The FBI, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Medicaid and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services investigated the case.
KEYWORDS: FRAUD TRIAL by CNB