MA Man Sentenced In RI For $3 Million Health Care Fraud Scam

PROVIDENCE, RI — A Massachusetts man was sentenced to eight years in federal prison after he admitted to defrauding Medicare, Medicaid, and other health insurers out of millions of dollars.

Michael Brier, 62, of Newton, Massachusetts, the owner of the now-defunct Recovery Connection Centers of America, admitted to a federal judge that his Rhode Island-based company failed to provide clients dealing with substance abuse issues with necessary treatment and counseling sessions. Prosecutors said that even though his company failed to provide these services, he still billed health insurers.

Brier’s company was billing Medicaid and Medicare for 45-minute counseling sessions, while in reality they were only five to 10 minutes in length, prosecutors said.

"Today’s sentence holds this career criminal accountable for capitalizing on the opioid crisis by defrauding taxpayer-funded federal health care programs out of millions of dollars and leaving the patients who came to his clinics deprived of treatment," Jodi Cohen, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division, said. "Michael Brier is a liar, a cheat, and the mastermind of this sophisticated scheme, and the FBI and our partners are gratified we could shut him down, along with his chain of addiction treatment centers, which were little more than a front for fraud."

Brier’s sentence also includes three years of federal probation and a requirement to pay restitution worth about $3.5 million.

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