Doctor Indicted After Allegedly Billing Medicare $95M for Unnecessary Wound Grafts, Including on Hospice Patients

A federal grand jury has indicted 74-year-old Stephen Dubin, owner of Dubin Medical Consultants Inc. (operating as Wound MD) in Henderson, Nevada, after prosecutors say he submitted more than $95 million in Medicare claims for expensive amniotic wound allografts that were often not medically necessary.

Allegations in the Indictment

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Nevada, Medicare reimbursed more than $54 million on the claims. The indictment alleges Dubin accepted illegal payments and kickbacks from two distributors that supplied the grafts, disguised some payments as "Rebate Agreements," and routed others through a pass-through bank account tied to a shell company.

Prosecutors say those arrangements reduced Dubin's actual acquisition costs but were not reflected in claims submitted to Medicare. Instead, investigators allege Dubin sought reimbursement using invoices that listed the grafts at full price, creating a gap between Medicare's payment and the true net cost. Prosecutors contend Dubin and others kept the difference as profit.

Patient Care Concerns

The indictment alleges grafts were applied to elderly Medicare patients — including some in hospice care — without proper medical necessity. Some grafts were reportedly placed on infected wounds or wounds that had not responded to prior care. Prosecutors also claim that Medicare-required conservative treatments were not always attempted, completed, or documented before grafts were used, and that billed quantities of graft material greatly exceeded actual wound sizes.

Alleged Record Falsification and Motive

Because Medicare coverage depends on documentation showing treatments were reasonable and necessary, the indictment further alleges Dubin falsified and altered medical records to make claims appear compliant with program rules. Prosecutors say proceeds from the alleged scheme financed an extravagant lifestyle, including construction of multimillion-dollar yachts.

Legal Status and Investigation

A federal grand jury returned the indictment on August 4. Dubin faces one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and five substantive health care fraud counts; each count carries a maximum statutory sentence of 10 years in federal prison. The case is being investigated by the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS OIG), and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS). No guilty plea or conviction has been reported.

What Beneficiaries Should Do

Officials urge Medicare beneficiaries and authorized caregivers to carefully review each Medicare Summary Notice against actual appointments and treatments. Look for unfamiliar providers, repeated wound-graft applications, incorrect treatment dates, or quantities that don’t match the care received. Beneficiaries can also sign in to their secure Medicare accounts to review processed claims. If a claim looks wrong, first contact the listed provider to verify whether it was a billing mistake.

Before consenting to expensive or repeated wound treatments, patients and caregivers should ask why the treatment is medically necessary, what conservative alternatives have been tried, how much will be covered, and what clinical benefit is expected. Families caring for hospice patients should notify the hospice team about outside treatments so they can confirm whether such treatments fit the patient’s care plan.

Suspected fraud may be reported through Medicare’s fraud-reporting system or by calling 1-800-633-4227. Callers should have the provider’s name, the disputed service, the treatment date, and relevant Medicare claim information available.