48 weeks' jail for dental clinic group manager involved in Medisave scam

The practice manager of a dental clinic group was jailed for 48 weeks yesterday over her involvement in a conspiracy to cheat the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board by submitting fraudulent Medisave claims.

Yeo Meow Koon, 50, had earlier pleaded guilty to conspiring with dentist Cecil Goh Chin Chye to cheat the CPF Board into disbursing $288,900 from his patients' Medisave accounts between 2011 and 2013.

She had also admitted to two counts of conspiring with another dentist Daniel Liew Yaoxiang to forge medical documents which were submitted for Ministry of Health (MOH) audits.

Two other charges related to conspiring with Liew and a third dentist Steven Ang Kiam Hau were considered in sentencing.

The dentists were stationed at separate clinics of The Smile Division Dental Group (TSD).

The scam was devised by Ang in 2009 and involved submitting fraudulent Medisave claims on behalf of TSD's patients for dental procedures performed on them.

He would certify that dental procedures had been performed on the patients on numerous dates, even though they were all done on a single day or, at most, two days.

This was to circumvent the daily Medisave withdrawal limits set by the MOH and allow patients to use their Medisave to pay for the treatments in full.

TSD would make multiple claims and receive the amounts from the patients' Medisave accounts.

Goh and Liew later joined Ang in the ruse.

For their roles in the scheme, Ang was jailed for two and a half years while Liew was jailed for two years. Goh's case is still pending.

Yeo initially submitted the claims online herself, but later delegated the task to another colleague.

She also instructed other clinic staff about the scheme, which entailed ensuring that the unique serial numbers associated with each claim were not in sequential order so as to reduce the likelihood of raising the authorities' suspicion.

Goh is said to have made 210 dishonest Medisave claims for nine of his patients between February 2011 and May 2013, which resulted in the CPF Board wrongfully disbursing a total of $288,900. This depleted his patients' Medisave accounts by about 57 to 100 per cent, according to court documents.

Yeo also assisted Liew in forging the clinical notes of a patient between October and November 2012, and of another in November 2013. In both instances, the clinical notes were required to be submitted as part of an MOH audit of the Medisave claims submitted by TSD.

As the genuine clinical notes would not have tallied with the false Medisave claims submitted for the patients, Yeo helped Liew with preparing another version of the notes. The false notes were then submitted to the MOH.

For conspiring to cheat the CPF Board, Yeo could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined. Offenders can be jailed for up to 10 years and fined for each forgery-related charge.