Alzheimer’s disease is a frightening diagnosis. Patients face a life where there is no escaping the future as the mind slowly empties of memories. It is a disease that locks all the doors and exits to a life they once knew. Almost, yet not as bad, as the life that Dr. Oliver Jenkins and Dr. Sherry-Ann Jenkins now face when the doors shut on them in prison. Because their biggest crime wasn’t stealing $150 million from Medicare. It was fraudulently diagnosing patients with Alzheimer’s.
Dr. Oliver Jenkins was an Ear, Nose, and Throat M.D. at the Toledo Clinic, and his wife Sherry-Ann Jenkins, who had a Ph.D. was not licensed to practice medicine. The pair established the Toledo Clinic Cognitive Center, part of the Toledo Clinic, stating that Oliver Jenkins would oversee medical treatments and diagnoses while Sherry-Ann Jenkins would administer testing under her husband’s supervision. However, Sherry-Ann Jenkins performed as a fully qualified and licensed physician assessing, diagnosing, and treating patients for perceived cognitive disorders, including Alzheimer’s Disease. She also ordered PET scans – an imaging test that typically involves administering an injection of a radioactive “tracer” to help visualize active areas of the brain – for nearly every patient. Sherry-Ann ordered the tests using her husband’s codes, bill for hours under her husband’s name though he never saw the patients, and bill for medically unnecessary treatments. All with no regards as to how she had ruined the victims lives.
In 2017, more than sixty people filed lawsuits beginning that said Sherry-Ann Jenkins lied and told them they had Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. The patients said they spent months undergoing treatment while planning out their final years, thinking they would die soon. Some quit their jobs or took one last special trip. One killed himself; others said they considered suicide. The patients who sued the couple and the clinic resolved the cases out of court.
Great job by the F.B.I with this investigation.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “Ohio couple sentenced to prison for fraud scheme involving dubious Alzheimer’s diagnoses” published by the Columbus Dispatch on September 29, 2023
An Ohio woman who worked as the director of a memory care center and was sued by patients for giving dozens of false Alzheimer’s diagnoses has been sentenced to 71 months in prison on federal fraud charges.
Sherry-Ann Jenkins, who has a Ph.D. but no medical license or training, must also pay a $25,000 fine. Also sentenced was her husband, Oliver Jenkins, who got 41 months and a $15,000 fine on Tuesday for what prosecutors said was a “scheme to defraud.”
