Orthodox clinic owner steals $7 mil from Medicaid in substance abuse fraud scheme

By Carolyn Yeager

MEDICAID SEEMS MADE TO ORDER FOR jEWS TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF. Now I've learned of the connection between the Hasidic Orthodox community of Kiryas Joel that recently gained voter approval to become an independent town adjacent to Monroe, NY, and a health clinic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The Jewish racket is this: First make the most vulnerable among us depressed, addicted and ill; then supply the government-funded “help” to treat their illness. And make millions for yourself.

So even though the Hasids have won their own town in New York, that is not sufficient for them; they still want to go far afield after the best money-making opportunities they might find. Kiryas Joel then becomes like Israel, a home port where they totally control the law enforcement and town hall, but can still go out and about in search of opportunities to scam the goyim.

Meet Abe Freund who lives on Acres Road in Kiryas Joel in a nice home with an added side extension and high trees at the property line. It is spacious, but nothing to match the 11-bedroom, 9-bath mansion where his son, Issac lives on another street. In spite of the nice homes, Kiryas Joel is one of the poorest communities in the nation because the residents exist in one-income households with large numbers of children per family. Abe Freund is being sued by the U.S. Government for defrauding Medicaid out of $7 million between 2011 and 2014. This excellent video wherein you can see both father and son's homes should be watched: http://pix11.com/2017/11/14/from-milwaukee-to-kiryas-joel-following-medicaid-millions-made-on-urine-tests/

Freund was the owner of the Acacia Mental Health Clinic LLC, 5228 W. Fond du Lac Ave in Milwaukee, which he bought in 2009 when heroin addiction was becoming a big problem in Milwaukee. Shortly after he filed papers denying the charges brought against him in April 2017, Freund sold the clinic in June to Dr. Neena Florsheim. She re-opened the clinic as “Achievement Associates”, a company where she had previously been an administrator. Then Florsheim promptly sold her interest to Netanel Friedman, who lives just up the street from Abe Freund in Kiryas Joel! In addition to this, Abe's son Issac, still living in the Kiryas Joel mansion, is said to be running the Milwaukee clinic now.

A former employees at the clinic contacted investigative reporter Bryan Polcyn of PIX11 because she was concerned it was being run by many of the same people that worked under Freund.

"They're doing exactly the same thing," the woman said, asking that her identity be masked. "They have the same clients." This woman said that many of the clients seeking services there were taking Suboxone to combat a heroin addiction.

Urine testing

A big part of addiction treatment involves testing for drugs using urine tests. According to the Journal Sentinel online:

Acacia used a simple "pee in a cup" test that indicates the presence of several drugs, which was reimbursable at $20, but "up-coded" the tests as more complex screens for more than a dozen specific drugs, thereby getting reimbursed for more than $230.

In November 2012, Acacia bought a $40,000 analyzer and began billing for tests done with it as well as the simpler method even though both generated general results. That raised the amount Acacia got paid for the same sample to more than $300.

In August 2013, Acacia added a $200,000 analyzer and another one for $220,000 that December. The machines allowed the clinic to specify the types of drugs in a urine sample. Though it is not often medically necessary, Acacia began doing the more complex tests — and billing for them — on every urine sample taken at the clinic, even when the original test was negative, and even began billing for some tests that weren't done, the suit contends.

In all, the number of urine drug screens claimed by Acacia rose from 1,559 in 2011 to 8,997 in 2014, vastly more than any other mental health care outlet in Wisconsin. Payments rose from $179,191 in 2011 to $2.9 million in 2014, for a total of nearly $5.9 million — or 99% of state reimbursements to mental health and substance abuse providers in the state. [You have to wonder how he thought he could get away with it. -cy]

Even used doctors from Israel

Prosecutors said Freund's clinic also charged Medicaid hundreds of thousands of dollars for psychiatric services performed by doctors based in Israel, via teleconferencing.

From 2011 to 2014, Acacia billed Medicaid $489,052 for more than 10,000 claims of service provided by two doctors, Isaac R. Nagel and Matthew B. Medwick, who the government says lived in Israel.

Some of the billings were for group therapy provided when Nagel and Medwick were not in the U.S.

There are precedents for federal prosecutors trying to retrieve Medicaid money. One of the nation's largest labs — Millenium in San Diego, California — agreed to pay the government $256 million under the False Claims Act, to settle a government lawsuit that accused Millenium of drug screening fraud, among other abuses. 

I hope we will be able to learn the outcome for this particular fraudster. He and his sons and Jewish partners should be required to wear a yellow star on their clothing as a warning to the hundreds of their potential victims. The orthodox town of Kiryas Joel and its citizens bears careful watching in the future, along with Lakewood, NJ.