Standish Man Sentenced to a Year and a Day in Prison for Health Care Fraud

Contact: James W. Chapman, Jr.
Assistant United States Attorney
Tel: (207) 780-3257

Portland, Maine:  Acting United States Attorney Richard W. Murphy announced that Paulo D. Braga, 66, of Standish, Maine was sentenced today in U.S. District Court by Chief Judge Nancy Torresen to one year and a day in prison for health care fraud.  He was also ordered to pay $89,445 in restitution.  Braga pleaded guilty to the offense on November 29, 2016.

According to court records, from 2010 to 2013, the defendant was a licensed clinical professional counselor who had offices in Portland and Windham, Maine.  He billed MaineCare through a third-party mental health agency that required him to submit progress notes for each counseling session. MaineCare is part of the federal Medicaid program.  Braga hired former mental health and substance abuse clients as office assistants and then instructed them to create and then sign his name to progress notes based on past progress notes, or that they created using their “imagination.”  He instructed them to bill for sessions based on his calendar of appointments, regardless of whether the client showed up for the appointment.  He also instructed his office assistants to always bill for the maximum number of sessions for a client that MaineCare allowed under its cap.  As a result, his staff submitted progress notes to his billing agency that contained false information or dates-of-service and caused MaineCare to pay for counseling sessions that never took place. 

This case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, Office of Investigations and the Healthcare Crimes Unit of the Maine Attorney General’s Office.