Delray Beach doctor sentenced to 20 years in sober home fraud

Michael J. Ligotti, 48, guilty of billing health care benefit programs for fraudulent tests, treatments

By: Allen Cone Posted at 8:41 PM, Jan 09, 2023 and last updated 8:41 PM, Jan 09, 2023

MIAMI, Fla. — A 48-year-old Delray Beach doctor was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison for engaging in a multi-year fraud involving sober homes in the largest addiction fraud treatment case ever charged by the Department of Justice.

Michael J. Ligotti was the medical director or authorizing physician for more 50 sober homes, substance abuse treatment facilities and clinical testing laboratories in the Palm Beach County area. Court papers show he billed insurance companies more than $746 million and paid himself approximately $127 million for fraudulent urine drug tests and addiction treatments. ... This case was brought as part of the Department of Justice’s Sober Homes Initiative.

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On Oct. 4, Ligotti accepted a plea agreement of conspiracy to commit health care and wire fraud. It was multi-year scheme to bill health care benefit programs for fraudulent tests and treatments for vulnerable patients seeking treatment for drug and/or alcohol addiction. ... In Miami, Southern District of Florida Judge Rodolfo A. Ruiz, II also ordered restitution to be determined and to surrender his medical license.

From 2011 to 2020, prosecutors said Ligotti billed patients’ private health insurance plans for "duplicative, medically unnecessary, and expensive urine drug tests, blood tests and other addiction treatments." ... In the scheme, facilities routinely sent patients’ urine specimens to clinical testing laboratories and health care benefit programs were for unnecessary urine drug tests, including some costing thousands of dollars for a single test.

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