Owner of addiction clinics faces health care fraud charges

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The owner of a chain of clinics treating substance abuse disorders in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and one of the company’s employees, were charged Thursday with cheating health insurers out of millions of dollars while depriving patients of needed services, federal prosecutors said. Michael Brier, 60, the owner of Recovery Connection Centers of America, Inc., was arrested at his home in Newton, Massachusetts — and charged with health care fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering and obstruction, U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island Zachary Cunha said at a news conference. It is alleged that “under the guise of running recovery clinics that supposedly provided much needed medical and therapy services to men and women in Rhode Island and Massachusetts who needed help in their struggles with addiction, these defendants in fact shortchanged their patients, providing them with little or no therapy and support while at the same time billing Medicare and other insurers as if they had,” Cunha said. Joseph R. Bonavolonta, special agent in charge of the FBI Boston division, called the case “one of the most brazen and egregious examples of health care fraud the FBI has seen here in Rhode Island in recent history.” The FBI seized Brier’s nearly $2 million home, two late-model cars, and the company’s Providence headquarters.