Benjamin Darrow 49 was sentenced by Judge Raymond Swope to serve 6 years and 4 months for formal probation. Darrow must serve 1 year in prison. Also, he must pay $877,000 in restitution for insurance fraud charges to a “food allergy test” he billed to more than 250 patients.
The California Board of Chiropractic Examiners is seeking to revoke his license.
After two days in trial last May, Darrow plead “no contest” to 3 criminal charges: insurance fraud, unlicensed practice of medicine, and illegal markup of laboratory charges.
The local DA said the tests that Darrow performed between 2012 and 2015 were not designed for insurance coverage because the tests were not proven effective when testing for food allergies.
Darrow claimed he was performing the test onsite although he was actually sending blood samples to an outside laboratory. He paid the lab $600 for each test, then charged insurance companies $3,000 per test.
Restitution is to be paid to Blue Shield, UnitedHealthcare, Anthem Insurance and Cigna.
