PATERSON, NJ–A chiropractor with offices in Paterson and Jersey City has been charged with 125 counts of insurance fraud for allegedly faking the claims of car accident victims so that they would appear to need continued care, the state attorney general said Tuesday.
Joseph Salomone, 44, a resident of Nutley who owned the Pain and Injury Center of North Jersey on Broadway in Paterson, allegedly stole more than $89,000 by filing false documentation to insurance companies.
He allegedly “kept the patients coming for months and months of chiropractic care by falsifying the results of examinations so that they always supported continued treatment — and continued billing,” said Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa. The case was brought by Ron Chillemi, the acting insurance fraud prosecutor for the state.
Besides the Paterson office, Salomone is president of Salomone Chiropractic in Jersey City and had run the now-defunct Pain Relief Health Center of New Jersey in East Orange, the Attorney General’s Office said.
The indictment by a state grand jury said that between Aug. 16, 2007, and June 4, 2011, Salomone asked his office workers to fill in forms about the range-of-motion tests of 37 patients who were car accident victims with information that didn’t come from actual assessments of the patients. Eleven of the patients were treated at the Paterson office, 14 in Jersey City and 12 in East Orange.
This fraudulent documentation was then submitted to Allstate Insurance Co., High Point Insurance Co., Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., New Jersey Manufacturer’s Insurance Co. and United States Automobile Association as part of the billing process, the indictment alleges. Through this fraud, the indictment said, Salomone sought nearly $200,000 in reimbursements and received $89,283.
The maximum sentence for each second-degree crime is 10 years in state prison and a fine of up to $150,000. Salomone remains licensed as a chiropractor, a spokesman for the state Board of Chiropractic Examiners said.
Source: The Record