City Dentist to Serve 18 Months in Prison for Defrauding Medicaid
Robin R. Lockwood, 44, a dentist from Oklahoma City, was sentenced last week to serve 18 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to committing health care fraud, announced Sanford C. Coats, United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma. In addition, Lockwood was ordered to pay $375,672.27 in restitution to Medicaid.
Lockwood is a dentist licensed to practice in the state of Oklahoma and was employed under contract by Ocean Dental at offices located at 1610 Southwest 74th Avenue in Oklahoma City. Ocean Dental’s dentists provided dental care to Medicaid-eligible children. The Medicaid Program is a cooperative program that provides federal and state funds to pay for health care benefits for individuals with insufficient incomes to meet the costs of necessary medical expenses. In Oklahoma, Medicaid is administered as “SoonerCare” by the Oklahoma Health Care Authority (OHCA), a state governmental agency. Ocean Dental submitted claims to the OHCA for reimbursement of dentists’ services based on patient treatment notes created by the dentists. Ocean Dental paid Lockwood a percentage of the funds that OHCA reimbursed to Ocean Dental for services she personally rendered.
The information alleged that from July 1, 2007 through December 31, 2010, Lockwood engaged in a scheme to defraud Medicaid by submitting claims for dental services that she did not provide. Specifically, Lockwood recorded in the patient’s treatment notes that she had placed dental restorations on certain teeth when, in fact, she had not treated the teeth at all. On other teeth, Lockwood recorded that she had placed dental restorations on more surfaces of the tooth than she had, in fact, restored or recorded that she had placed a dental restoration on the tooth when, in fact, she had placed on the tooth a type of treatment that is non-reimbursable by Medicaid. Lockwood used the proceeds of the fraud for her own personal benefit.
Lockwood pled guilty on July 11, 2012.
Source: U.S. Attorney’s Office
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