PROVIDENCE – A local clinical social worker has admitted that she helped plot and take part in a scheme that defrauded substance abuse disorder patients out of treatment services as well as insurers out of more than $3.5 million, U.S. attorney for Rhode Island Zachary A. Cunha announced Thursday.
Mi Ok Song Bruining, 63, of Warwick, admitted to routinely submitting false and fraudulent claims for psychotherapy and counseling services that did not match the length of time billed and consistently charging for far more patients than what was possible to see in a single day while employed as a supervisor at Recovery Connections of America in Providence. Bruining defrauded a variety of federal, state and private health care insurers including Medicare and Medicaid.
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Bruining, also known as the “5 Minute Queen” at work for how quickly she saw patients, stated she would bill for 45-minute sessions but actually saw patients for no more than 5 to 10 minutes and sometimes only asked them a single question before ending the visit.
To accomplish this, Bruining would direct counselors and other employees to record that they were providing 45-minute counseling sessions, but to not list a.m. or p.m. in the start time so it wasn’t clear they were seeing more patients than is possible in a single hour, according to information presented to the court. Bruining had also instructed other counselors to copy and paste the last visit’s note into each entry so that the bill would look complete. This meant that many the notes of patients’ billed by the center were identical copies.
The news comes several months after Bruining and the center’s CEO, Michael Brier, were arrested at their homes by the FBI and faced with several charges including, heath care fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering and obstruction, allegedly billing health insurers millions of dollars for personal gain instead of helping opioid addiction patients in need, PBN previously reported.
Cunha had estimated that the center received $15 million in both federal and private payments for substandard care as a result of the scheme, according to previous PBN reports. Federal law enforcement officials also alleged that Brier had used information from multiple other doctors to prescribe opioid addiction treatment drugs without those doctors’ permission.
On Feb. 23 the Better Business Bureau had also published “Behind the Business” online profile of Brier and Recovery Connection. In the profile Brier was quoted saying “When I learned that more and more people were dying from overdose deaths each year and there was a shortage of doctors in the addiction field because of the stigma, building a business with a mission became more important than just building a business for money,” PBN reported.
Bruining pled guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 15, 2024. Her sentence will be determined by a federal district judge and the case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys, Sara Miron Bloom and Kevin Love Hubbard, according to a news release.
Katie Castellani is a PBN staff writer. You may contact her at Castellani@PBN.com
