Hertel & Brown Physical and Aquatic Therapy, its founders and 18 employees have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Erie on November 9 on charges of conspiracy to commit wire and health care fraud and health care fraud.

The founders and all other defendants plead not guilty at arraignments on federal fraud charges. The final defendant, Jeremy Bowes of Erie plead not guilty at his arraignment through video conferencing on Thursday morning.

Magistrate Judge Richard A. Lanzillo explained Bowes’ rights, as he did for other defendants on Tuesday and accepted his not guilty plea.

Each defendant also requested a jury trial.

The indictment charges each defendant with the same felony, health care fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and health care fraud.

A conviction on the conspiracy to commit wire fraud count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, and a conviction on the health care fraud charge has a maximum sentence of 10 years.

Bowes’ defense attorney, Mark Sindler of Pittsburgh requested at least 120 days to prepare for the trial.

During Thursday’s arraignment, Lanzillo also announced he would allow the defendants to remain at liberty pending their trial. He gave each an unsecured bond of $10,000 and ordered Bowes surrender his passport and not seek any new passports.

Hertel and Brown and each defendant 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.