Fraud of the Week: Nip/Tuck Here, Workers' Comp Fraud There

A New Jersey plastic surgeon can no longer operate his phony injury claim. According to Greta Gooden Brown, the state’s insurance fraud prosecutor, W. Lance Kollmer, 57, twice made false claims that he was totally disabled from the practice of plastic surgery and entitled to obtain disability benefits from an insurance company.

Kollmer admitted that in 1999 he submitted a false disability claim to his insurance company under a business overhead expense policy for expenses associated with running his medical practice, claiming that he was disabled and unable to perform surgery. The fraud prosecutor’s investigation conducted that he in fact continued to perform surgery during the time he claimed he was doing no surgeries. Most of the surgeries were reconstructive procedures performed on trauma victims in various hospital emergency rooms.Kollmer also admitted to submitting a second false disability claim two years later to another insurance company. He again sought reimbursement for office overhead expenses associated with his medical practice and benefits under a separate long-term disability policy, alleging he sustained a totally disabling injury to his rotator cuff in a volleyball game approximately one month before he surrendered his license to practice medicine.