Be a Clinician, Not a Criminal
Pennsylvania’ s Dental Meeting
FEATURED SPEAKER
Be a Clinician, Not a Criminal
Roy S. Shelburne, DDS
I am a husband, a father, a dentist, a business owner … and a convicted felon. Yes, a convicted felon. I was found guilty of Health Care Fraud, Racketeering, Money Laundering and Structuring on March 6, 2008.
After being found guilty of health care fraud, racketeering, and money laundering, learning the hard way, Dr. Shelburne has become a nationally known speaker / writer / consultant and an American Dental Association Subject Matter Expert on recordkeeping, billing and coding. His focus is on proper documentation, maximizing legitimate reimbursement, reducing risk, lowering stress for dental practices and most importantly …. keeping other health care professionals out of jail.
Life can present us with a series of world altering events, some good some bad. Some of these events are enviable, like births and deaths. Some events are unexpected and devastating, as in my case. Don’ t get me wrong, I understand and appreciate in the larger scheme of things, the prolonged sickness of or loss of a loved one prematurely certainly carries more weight than my conviction. Nonetheless, what I experienced is probably the worst thing that can happen to a dentist professionally. The day I was found guilty my life and the life of my family, that I love, vaporized as we knew it.
While at the American Dental Association meeting in San Francisco on October 24, 2003, my wife called me to let me know the FBI was at my office. They had battered down the back door and were confiscating all my records. I flew back home that day, drove to my office to find it surrounded by FBI vehicles as I watched agents carry out boxes and boxes of my patient records. From that point in my life and for the next three years, I was a target of a health care fraud investigation. I was arrested on May 27, 2006.
JULY / AUGUST 2017 | PENNSYLVANIA DENTAL JOURNAL 21