Diagnosis Medicare Fraud
Peter Hillenbrand, 86, underwent more than 15 surgeries to remove skin cancer.
“I had so many cuts on my face, my arm, my back,” says Hillenbrand of Sarasota, Fla. After one surgery, his left eye was sewn shut for two months. Some of the surgeries left scars.
But Hillenbrand may never have had skin cancer. He was a patient of Sarasota dermatologist Michael Rosin, who is serving 22 years in federal prison for Medicare fraud. Rosin was convicted in 2006 after billing more than $3 million for unnecessary surgeries on at least 70 elderly patients.
Rosin, 57, routinely gave patients false skin-cancer diagnoses, sometimes without even looking at their biopsy slides. Dozens of slides recovered from his office were completely unreadable. He blamed their illegibility on a “conspiracy” amongst his staff.
Nearly every patient who had a biopsy was told he or she had skin cancer and needed surgery. According to court testimony, one former patient said that she became so accustomed to Rosin finding cancer that she would schedule surgery before he gave her the biopsy results.
Because Rosin could bill Medicare for each layer of skin he removed, many patients were subjected to unnecessary removal of layers, leaving some permanently disfigured. Others, like Hillenbrand, underwent surgery many times.
“Every time he went to the doctor, they told him he had skin cancer,” says Hillenbrand’s wife, Sophie, 84. “I told him he should go to another doctor to find out if it’s true, but he believed in Dr. Rosin very strongly.”
Hillenbrand says he thought Rosin was a friend. When he discovered that the married father of seven was defrauding him and others, Hillenbrand cried. “It was such a terrible, terrible thing that he was doing,” he says.
An employee at Rosin’s office eventually filed a federal whistleblower suit against him, leading to an FBI investigation. In March 2006, a federal jury found Rosin guilty of 70 counts of Medicare fraud. U.S. District Judge William Castagna sentenced Rosin to 22 years in federal prison and ordered him to pay $48,866 to patients, $3.6 million to the Medicare trust fund, and another $3.7 million to the government.
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