A doctor from Long Island was indicted on Tuesday for allegedly receiving bribes that involved cash and tickets to Justin Bieber and Katy Perry concerts. What would you do for Bieber tix, huh???
Bret Ostrager, a 55-year-old who practices in Woodbury, New York, is accused of taking bribes totaling $3,300 a month from employees at the blood lab Biodiagnostic Laboratory Services.
Ostrager allegedly sent business to the lab in exchange for cash, dinners, and tickets to concerts and games.
According to Billboard:
In return, prosecutors claim Ostrager referred his patients’ blood samples to BLS, generating just over $900,000 in business for the lab.
The 38 people involved in the scheme have all pleaded guilty.
Its organizers have admitted that millions of dollars of bribes resulted in more than $100 million in payments to BLS from Medicare and private insurers.
Ostager could be sentenced to up to five years in prison. He got those Bieber tickets, tho.
Contact the author at clover@jezebel.com.
Image via Getty
DISCUSSION
Sorry for a dumb question but I am not clear about what the doctor is alleged to have done wrong/the reason behind the charges. Were the referrals or lab work he ordered unnecessary, defrauding whoever was paying the bills, or is it simply that he received incentives to steer business to that one lab? Thanks.
(If it that he accepted tickets, trips, etc., to send business their way I am really confused, because I thought that was SOP for pharmaceutical companies, medical supply companies, etc.)