WHITE PLAINS – A former
orthopedic surgeon from Hopewell Junction who had served three years of
a 4 ½ year sentence in federal prison for health care fraud, was
arrested and charged on Tuesday in an unrelated healthcare fraud case.
Spyros Panos, 49, was charged in federal district court in White Plains
on Tuesday with wire fraud, health care fraud and aggravated identity
theft for allegedly using another physician’s identity to perform
peer reviews of Workers’ Compensation examination reports while
unlicensed to practice medicine and while under federal custody for a
separate health care fraud.
The new charges relate to activities that allegedly took place in late
2013, and between November 2016 and October 2017, both before and after
Panos was released from federal prison after serving his federal prison
term.
Panos pled guilty and surrendered his medical license in late 2013, admitting
to having operated a multi-year scheme in which he defrauded Medicare,
the New York State Insurance Fund, and several private insurance providers
by systematically lying about the nature and scope of the surgical procedures
he performed. He was also ordered to pay a $250,000 file and $5 million
in restitution for those previous crimes.
The latest case was investigated by New York State Inspector General Catherine
Leahy Scott and Geoffrey Berman, the US Attorney for the Southern District
of New York.
