Cosmetic Surgeon Gets Prison Term for Billing Fraud
A Brentwood cosmetic surgeon was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison Friday for disguising nose jobs and other elective procedures as medically necessary.
Dr. Ronald W. Strahan, 62, who operated the West Olympic Surgery Center, was also ordered to make $734,172 in restitution to the insurance companies he bilked, pay a $75,000 fine and perform 500 hours of community service.
In a plea agreement with prosecutors last year, Strahan admitted that he surgically peeled back skin on the noses of anesthetized patients, inserted foreign objects into their noses and then photographed the resulting deformities to trick insurance companies.
Strahan acknowledged having diagnosed his patients with nonexistent medical conditions to obtain compensation for cosmetic liposuction.
U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson called Strahan’s crime a “carefully plotted, orchestrated and continuous string of frauds.”
Strahan pleaded guilty to mail fraud, a felony.
Another cosmetic surgeon who worked at Strahan’s clinic, Dr. Alvin Reiter, was sentenced Friday to three years’ probation, including six months of home detention, for falsely billing insurance companies. Wilson said he would have sentenced Reiter to prison were he not suffering from non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
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