Husband Wife Chiropractors Plead Guilty to Conspiracy to Commit Health Care Fraud and Theft from a Health Care Plan

ALEXANDRIA, VA—Doctors Tammy Lee Cashion, age 48, and her spouse Paul J. Curcio, age 47, of Clifton, Virginia, pleaded guilty today to the charge of conspiracy in connection with the operation of their Chiropractic Family Health Center in Centreville, Virginia.

Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office made the announcement after the pleas were accepted by United States District Judge Claude M. Hilton and United States Magistrate Judge John F. Anderson.

Sentencing for Doctor Cashion is set for April 22, 2011. Cashion faces a maximum penalty of five years of incarceration and full restitution. Sentencing for Doctor Curcio is set for April 26, 2011. Curcio, who pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to commit misdemeanor theft, faces up to one year of incarceration and full restitution.

According to statements of fact filed with both plea agreements, besides performing chiropractic adjustments which were properly billed to insurance companies, both Cashion and Curcio conspired with their associate chiropractor Benjamin Hopsicker to bill for physical therapy ostensibly performed on their patients when the therapy was either not performed at all or was not performed for a sufficient length of time to be billable under the American Medical Association's CPT codes. Beginning in April 2008 Anthem Blue Cross required that physicians and licensed therapists spend a minimum of eight minutes with a patient, one-on-one, performing certain therapeutic procedures in order to bill for those procedures. In the case of the Chiropractic Family Health Center, before Anthem would pay any claims, it required that Cashion and Curcio and their associate physicians document in their notes the amount of time spent with each physical therapy procedure. Shortly thereafter, Curcio initiated an agreement with his employee Hopsicker to bill for physical therapy and, when necessary, to falsify their physician notes making it appear that they had spent a minimum of eight minutes or more performing the procedure when in fact they had not done so. According to both plea agreements, Cashion and Cucio agreed to repay three insurance companies, Anthem Blue Cross, Aetna, and United Health Care, a total of $110,000.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant United States Attorney Stephen P. Learned prosecuted the case on behalf of the United States.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.justice.gov/usao/vae. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.uspci.uscourts.gov.