Fourteen defendants convicted in the Forest Park Medical Center bribery scam have been sentenced to a combined 74+ years in federal prison and ordered to pay a total of $82.9 million in restitution. The $200 million scheme was designed to induce doctors to steer lucrative patients — particularly those with high-reimbursing, out-of-network private insurance — to the now defunct hospital. Most of the kickbacks, which totaled more than $40 million, were disguised as consulting fees or “marketing money” doled as a percentage of surgeries each doctor referred to Forest Park. Instead of billing patients for out-of-network co-payments, instituted by insurers to de-incentivize the high costs associated with out-of-network treatment, Forest Park allegedly assured patients they would pay in-network prices. Because they knew insurers wouldn’t tolerate such practices, they concealed the patient discounts and wrote off the difference as uncollected “bad debt.” Hospital manager Alan Andrew Beauchamp — who pleaded guilty in August 2018 to one count of conspiracy to pay healthcare bribes and one count of commercial bribery under the Travel Act, then testified for the government during his coconspirators’ trial — admitted that Forest Park “bought surgeries,” and then “papered it up to make it look good.” Mr. Beauchamp was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison.
