Psychiatrist Gustavo Kinrys has been sentenced to 99 months in prison for defrauding Medicare and private insurers of $19 million by billing for services not provided and attempting to cover up the crime, according to the US Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts.
Kinrys, 53, used the fraudulent proceeds to purchase a $2.1 million vacation home in Nantucket, pay off his $1.8 million residence, and spend over $600,000 at jewelers such as Cartier, Van Cleef, and Tiffany’s, authorities said.
Following his prison term, Kinrys will face three years of supervised release, according to a report by AM Best. He has also been ordered to pay restitution and forfeiture, with the amounts to be determined at a later hearing.
In October, Kinrys was convicted of billing Medicare and private insurers $10.6 million for thousands of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) sessions that never occurred between January 2015 and December 2018. Authorities reported that this included over 8,000 sessions for 74 patients who had not received any treatments.
Kinrys was also found guilty of obstructing an investigation into his billing practices. He owned and operated Advanced TMS Associates in Natick, Massachusetts.
Additionally, Kinrys billed Medicare and private insurers for millions of dollars in nonexistent psychotherapy sessions. He claimed to have conducted over 900 face-to-face sessions while vacationing abroad.
A joint statement from authorities detailed that Kinrys made numerous false statements to his patients, his billing company, and the insurers to whom he submitted claims. When Medicare and private insurers requested records to justify his claims, Kinrys created and forced an employee to create fake patient records to submit.
In response to a July 2018 subpoena from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, Kinrys produced additional fake patient records. These records falsely indicated that patients had received dozens of non-existent treatments and misrepresented their medical conditions as improving.
“This sentence underscores our unwavering commitment to prosecuting those who exploit the health care system for personal gain,” Acting United States Attorney Joshua Levy said. “When someone commits health care fraud, we all suffer – it drives up costs for everyone. Our office will continue to prioritize the investigation and prosecution of those who engage in such egregious misconduct.”
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