Boca Raton doctor pleads guilty to insurance fraud in sober-home cases

Boca Raton doctor pleads guilty to insurance fraud in sober-home cases

BOCA RATON — A Boca Raton physician has pleaded guilty to four counts of defrauding three insurance companies of more than $17 million, the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office announced Monday. 

Max Louis Citrin entered the plea during a court hearing Monday before Circuit Judge Kirk Volker. Under the terms of the plea, Citrin will serve 30 months in prison, followed by five years of probation.

Citrin, 38, also will relinquish his medical licenses in Florida and California, as well as pay $2.5 million in restitution to the Cigna, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Humana insurance companies.

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Task force investigated doctor’s work with sober-home patients

His conviction is the 75th credited to the Palm Beach County Sober Homes Task Force, which in November 2017 began investigating complaints that Citrin was improperly prescribing controlled substances to residents of sober homes.

He was arrested in March 2020 and rearrested in February on additional charges related to the investigation. 

“Dr. Citrin made a mockery of his Hippocratic oath by cutting and pasting the same symptoms and vital signs for most of his patients so he could fraudulently bill insurers millions of dollars,” Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said Monday in prepared remarks.

Said defense attorney Jordan Lewin: “We’re pleased that we were able to resolve the matter in the fashion that we did. Max is looking forward to putting this whole matter behind him and moving forward with his life.”

Citrin filled a fraudulent prescription for an undercover officer

Investigators alleged that Citrin routinely billed insurance companies as much as $20,000 per patient for allergy testing and treatments that were unnecessary.

In November 2017, two witnesses told a detective assigned to the task force that Citrin wrote narcotic prescriptions for their boyfriends in exchange for recruiting drug-recovery patients to his practice. 

Authorities say he later gave a Xanax prescription to an undercover officer who never complained of allergy problems.

A review of the 78 patients’ files found that Citrin cut and pasted nearly identical diagnoses, symptoms, backgrounds and vital signs on claims forms, investigators said.

There were 227 patients involved in the fraudulent treatment and billing scheme, many of whom never complained about or suffered from allergies of any kind, authorities said.

The insurance companies reportedly paid Citrin in excess of $2.4 million for the claims. Authorities alleged that between 2015 and 2018 Citrin filed fraudulent claims totaling in excess of $17 million.

jwhigham@pbpost.com

@JuliusWhigham