Houston
A Houston physician sentenced to 10 years in prison for Medicare fraud was told by a federal judge that she could no longer be called a doctor — and must correct anyone who calls her one. Callie Hall Herpin, 35, pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to defraud Medicare of more than $30 million for participating in a power wheelchair scam and distributing drugs illegally.
“I consider you a disgrace to every physician in this country who adheres to the ethics of the medical profession and to the Hippocratic oath,” U.S. District Judge David Hittner told Herpin at the sentencing in April, the Houston Chronicle reported. Hittner said Herpin could not use the titles ‘doctor’ or ‘M.D.’ until her license is reinstated.
Hittner also said he would have sentenced Herpin to 17 more years if she had not entered into a plea agreement that limited her sentence to a maximum of 10 years.
Herpin was described as “the apex of the pyramid of illegal conduct” in the wheelchair scam that plagued the Houston area in 2002-2003, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of Texas.
