A former Montana nurse practitioner was sentenced to five years in federal prison over falsely billing an insurance company $62 million for vitamin B-12 injections.
Tristan Svejkovsky, 41, pleaded guilty in August 2024 to healthcare fraud and using a registration number issued to another person, according to a Jan. 17 Justice Department news release.
Ms. Svejkovsky's license was suspended by the Montana Board of Nursing on April 1, 2022. However, she continued to prescribe controlled substances using her own name and DEA registration number until June 2022, according to the release. In June, she voluntarily surrendered her DEA registration, but began using the name and registration number of a friend who was also a nurse practitioner. Ms. Svejkovsky used the friend's information to write at least 28 prescriptions for controlled substances. She then falsely billed Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana for 158 vitamin B-12 injections that were not administered and stole $613,108 from the insurance company.
After her license was suspended, she started submitting numerous claims for B-12 injections by backdating the claims to before her license was suspended. This continued through May 2022 and the claims amounted to $62,310,000 in fraudulent claims for the injections.
Ms. Svejkovsky was sentenced to five years in prison, three years of probation and to pay $613,108 in restitution.