A Pharmacist and Practice Manager from across Australia were sentenced last week after fraudulently claiming more than $470,000 in payments under the Medicare Benefits Scheme (MBS) and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The below outcomes are a culmination of a strong collaboration between the Department of Health and Aged Care and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Victoria \u2013 2 February 2023 \u2013 Carson Au<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Victorian pharmacy practitioner Carson Au was sentenced to two years imprisonment after having made 76 false PBS claims between 25 February 2018 and 20 September 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Au received PBS payments in the amount of $110,461.68 to which he was not entitled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He was sentenced to two years imprisonment commencing on the 2 February 2023 and will serve eight months in custody before being released on a $5,000 Good Behaviour Bond of two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All monies owed by Mr Au have been repaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n New South Wales \u2013 3 February 2023 \u2013 Amanda Leigh Blackburn<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Former practice manager Amanda Blackburn of St Clair was sentenced to a maximum of four years imprisonment with a minimum two years to be served by the Parramatta District Court after pleading guilty to defrauding taxpayers of almost $315,000 by lodging false MBS claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ms Blackburn was found to have made 3,915 false or misleading MBS claims for 6,897 services between 26 March 2014 and 1 February 2021 that were not actually provided to patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Restitution Order was issued by the Court for $314,253.60<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Department of Health and Aged Care takes allegations of Medicare non-compliance very seriously and all tip-offs are reviewed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyone with information about suspected non-compliance or fraud of Government health payments by health providers can make a report via the \u201cReporting Fraud\u201d page on the Department of Health\u2019s website at www.health.gov.au\/fraud-tip-offs<\/a> or by calling the Provider Benefits Integrity Hotline on 1800 314 808.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Pharmacist and Practice Manager from across Australia were sentenced last week after fraudulently claiming more than $470,000 in payments under the Medicare Benefits Scheme (MBS) and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). The below outcomes are a culmination of a strong collaboration between the Department of Health and Aged Care and the Commonwealth Director of … Continue reading “Jail time for Pharmacist and Practice Manager”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20076,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20075\/revisions\/20076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}