CARBONDALE PHYSICIAN SENTENCED ON FEDERAL HEALTH CARE FRAUD CHARGES

Dennis C. Pfannenschmidt, United States Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, announced today that a Scranton area physician was sentenced today by United States District Court Judge A. Richard Caputo on federal health care fraud charges. Judge Caputo sentenced Salko to a two year term of probation, 100 hours of community service and further ordered that Salko pay a $20,000 fine.

According to U.S. Attorney Pfannenschmidt, Dr. Gregory J. Salko, age 63, of Carbondale, Pennsylvania, the owner-operator of the Whites Crossing Medical Group in Carbondale, was originally charged by Indictment in July of 2007 with two counts of Health Care Fraud and 17 counts of False Statements in Health Care Matters. The charges related to Salko’s treatment and falsification of medical records pertaining to two elderly Medicare patients in 2005 and 2006.

On June 30, 2009, SALKO pleaded guilty to a two-count, misdemeanor Superceding Information. Count One of the Superceding Information alleged Salko made false representations of material facts in a July 17, 2005 progress note he prepared for one of his elderly Medicare patients. The Indictment alleged the progress notes were fictitious because the patient had replaced Salko with another physician in May of 2005. Shortly after the patient switched physicians she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy.

The Superceding Information alleged in Count II that Salko committed a criminal violation of the HIPAA Privacy Act by falsely representing in writing to the Community Medical Center in Scranton on April 3,2007, that he was authorized to obtain the medical records of the other elderly Medicare patient, one Peggy Rogers. Rogers was a 69-year-old resident of Birch Hill, an assisted living facility Salko owned in Carbondale. On August 20, 2006, Rogers was admitted to the Carbondale Hospital emergency room wearing soiled clothing and smelling of urine with thick, flaking scales of dead skin on her legs and feet. Worse, Rogers’ brassiere was encrusted with fluid draining from an open, four-centimeter-wide lesion on her right breast. Subsequent testing confirmed Rogers had advanced breast cancer and Rogers died less than three months later. SALKO was removed as Rogers’ physician after the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas appointed an official from the Pennsylvania Area Agency on Aging as Roger’s court appointed guardian.

U.S. Attorney Pfannenschmidt noted the case was investigated by investigators from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Inspector General’s Office. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kim Douglas Daniel.

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