When former WellCare Inc. general counsel Thaddeus M.S. Bereday walks into a federal courtroom in Tampa on Nov. 15 for his scheduled sentencing hearing, he'll be facing a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for making false statements to defraud Medicaid. Bereday, who pleaded guilty on June 28 to one count of “knowingly and willingly” submitting false expenditures, is one of the latest examples of the federal government's crackdown on health care fraud. Bereday, who is free on bond, has declined comment for this article. Thanks to his cooperative plea deal, however, the Justice Department has said it will seek to lower his sentence at the hearing.

While Bereday is one of the few lawyers to be charged with health care fraud recently, he is not the only professional by any means. The U.S. Department of Justice had a record two weeks in July, citing professionals for health care fraud and other misdeeds.

For example, from July 5 to July 17, a clinical psychologist in Louisiana was sentenced to 180 months in prison and ordered to pay $13.8 million in restitution for Medicare fraud; a licensed physician in Miami pleaded guilty to submitting false claims and illegally prescribing controlled substances and a Brooklyn pharmacy owner and operator was charged with allegedly submitting $9 million in false claims to Medicare and Medicaid.