Canton Surgeon Sentenced to 16 Months in Prison for Health Care Fraud

Orthopedic surgeon Olarewaju James Oladipo, 60, from Canton, MA was sentenced by a federal court on May 21, 2024 for his part in a health care fraud scheme. The sentencing comes after Dr. Oladipo was  convicted by a federal jury of 10 counts of health care fraud in December 2023.

Dr. Oladipo was sentenced to 16 months in prison, followed by one year of supervised release.

According to a press release by the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts, the doctor falsely billed for patient visits. He used billing codes for complex, more expensive services that were never provided. The U.S. Attorney's Office states that Dr. Oladipo frequently billed more than 60 patients per day, and sometimes as many as more than 100 per day. With patient numbers like that, Dr. Oladipo would only have been able to see patients for 5 minutes or less, but he billed for 15, 25, 30, or 45 minutes, says the U.S. Attorney's Office. The scheme lasted approximately from January 2016 to December 2019.

The U.S. Attorney's office notes, "Oladipo ensured this high flow of patients to his practice by prescribing powerful, highly addictive opioids at a rate that made him one of the top prescribers of such drugs in Massachusetts. The evidence presented at trial showed that Oladipo knowingly prescribed oxycodone to patients suffering from opioid addiction."

For local news in your inbox, subscribe to Westwood Minute!

You may also like to read:

- Police Log: 3rd Incident in 1 Week of Vehicles Crashing into Westwood Buildings and Other Stories

- Four Arrested in Connection to 43 Breaks Across 25 Communities, Including Westwood and Nearby

- Westwood Families Report Thefts over School Vacation Week

- Karen Read Trial Begins in Dedham with Street Closure and Buffer Zone