Hertel & Brown, Founders and 18 Employees Indicted for Fraud

Hertel & Brown Physical and Aquatic Therapy, its founders and 18 employees have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Erie on charges of conspiracy to commit wire and health care fraud and health care fraud, acting U.S. Attorney Stephen R. Kaufman announced Tuesday.

Founders Aaron Hertel, of North East, and Michael Brown, of Erie, and the following 18 employees have been named in the two-count indictment:

1. Sarah Bailey, Erie
2. Jessica Morphy, Erie
3. Jacqueline Exley, Erie
4. Julie Johnson, Erie
5. Bobby Rainey, Erie
6. Steve Bauer, Erie
7. Austin Dudenhoefer, Erie
8. Philip Sorensen, Jr., Erie
9. Patricia Berchtold, Melbourne, Florida
10. Jeremy Bowes, Erie
11. Jennifer Larmon, Waterford
12. Travis Litz, Erie
13. Erin Riffe, Conneaut, Ohio
14. Abigayle Fachetti, Erie
15. Lori Goss, Waterford
16. Marissa Hull, Waterford
17. Justin Burger, Erie
18. Car Lewis Jr., Lake City

The business has also been listed as a defendant in the indictment.

They are accused of the following from January 2007 to October 2021:

a) Hertel & Brown Physical & Aquatic Therapy utilized unlicensed technicians to provide physical therapy treatment, including aquatic therapy, and billed that treatment as if performed by a licensed physical therapist or physical therapy assistant.

b) Unlicensed technicians at Hertel & Brown Physical & Aquatic Therapy were permitted and required to log into the treatment documentation system, WebPT, as a licensed physical therapist to facilitate documenting treatment as if performed by a licensed
therapist.

c) Hertel & Brown Physical & Aquatic Therapy and its licensed employees regularly recorded and billed for treatment time in excess of actual treatment time spent with patients.

d) Hertel & Brown Physical & Aquatic Therapy and its licensed employees rarely if ever utilized group therapy codes when billing for treatment even when group billing codes were the only appropriate billing codes that could have been utilized.

d) Hertel & Brown Physical & Aquatic Therapy regularly billed treatment time using the name and credentials of a physical therapist who was on vacation and not working on the day in question.

e) Hertel & Brown Physical & Aquatic Therapy allowed physical therapy assistants and unlicensed personnel to treat patients with insurance that only reimbursed for treatment performed by a physical therapist. Then the practice and its employees covered up who actually treated the patient by removing the name of the actual person providing treatment from the treatment record.

f) Hertel & Brown Physical & Aquatic Therapy and some of its employees also manually changed the patient schedule after the fact to conceal that Medicare patients were scheduled at the same time as other patients. This was done to conceal that Medicare patients did not have one on one treatment with a physical therapist as billed by the practice and required by Medicare.

“The indictment alleges that essentially since Hertel & Brown opened in 2007, the defendants perpetrated a systematic and brazen fraud scheme that bilked insurance companies and the government of millions through blatantly false billings,” said U.S. Attorney Kaufman.

If convicted, each defendant and the business face a maximum total sentence of 30 years in prison, a fine of $500,000 or twice the financial loss (whichever is greater), or both, depending upon the seriousness of the offenses and any prior criminal history.

Special agents served search warrants at five Hertel & Brown locations Feb. 23:

1. 902 W. Erie Plaza Dr., Erie
2. 8270 Peach St., Suite 400, Erie
3. 3911 Avonia Rd., Fairview
4. 4472 Buffalo Rd., Erie
5. 2 Farm Colony Dr., Warren