A seventh Twin Cities chiropractor was charged last week for allegedly conspiring to commit health care fraud by billing insurance companies for services that were deemed medically unnecessary or were not performed.
 
Forty-three-year-old Timothy Guthman, owner of Inver Grove Heights-based Inver Family Chiropractic and Minneapolis-based Team Chiropractic, was indicted on one count each of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud. He joins six other chiropractors and 15 other individuals in the metro area who were purportedly involved in an ongoing investigation led by the Minnesota Commerce Fraud Bureau and the FBI.
 
Last December, the agencies filed federal charges against the 21 individuals claiming they had set up a large-scale fraud scheme that took advantage of Minnesota’s No-Fault Automobile Insurance Act. In it, those who claim to have been in a car accident are guaranteed at least $20,000 in medical coverage, no matter if they were or were not at fault for the accident.
 
According to the indictment, chiropractors like Guthman would ask patient recruiters, known as “runners,” to bring in patients for chiropractic appointments. The chiropractor would then submit a claim and receive reimbursements for their services, court filings indicate.
 
To encourage runners to bring in new patients, the indictment said Guthman and other chiropractors would allegedly provide kickback payments of $500 to $1,500 per patient. The checks runners received were allegedly given false memo lines, concealing the payments for uses such as “transportation,” “marketing” or “office supplies.”
 
Altogether, the indicted chiropractors ran their purported fraud scheme from 2010 to 2015 and billed insurance companies more than $20 million.
 
While announcing the first indictments back in December, now-former U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger said there could be more individuals that took part in the alleged scheme.
 
Guthman did not respond to TCB’s request for comment on the allegations against him.