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New Haven County resident Dennis Dellaghelfa, age 54, of Waterbury, was sentenced on Wednesday, Sept. 6 to four years in prison for health care fraud, the US Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut announced.
According to federal officials, Dellaghelfa, a licensed hearing instrument specialist, is the owner of Waterbury-based hearing aid dealer General Hearing. Since around 2013, General Hearing has been enrolled as a participating provider in the Connecticut Medical Assistance Program, which provides medical assistance to people with low incomes.
One of the program's benefit packages is Connecticut Medicaid, which is funded by the state and federal government.
Between June 2016 and April 2022, Dellaghelfa submitted fraudulent claims for payment for services and equipment that were either not provided or medically unnecessary. One such instance of this occurred in November 2018, when he submitted claims to Connecticut Medicaid for services provided to six patients while Dellaghelfa had been traveling outside of the country.
In both 2019 and 2020, some of these fraudulent claims involved services that were supposedly provided by his three employees. According to federal officials, Dellaghelfa knew that they had provided hearing tests without having the required professional permit, and had submitted paperwork for hearing tests and services that did not happen or were medically unnecessary.
Additionally, Dellaghelfa violated his provider agreement with the medical assistance program by paying third-party "patient recruiters" for each Medicaid patient brought to General Hearing for a hearing test who then failed and received hearing aids.
He also submitted false claims for testing and hearing aids for five of these patient recruiters who did not actually need the equipment.
Dellaghelfa ultimately pleaded guilty to health care fraud on Thursday, Feb. 9. In addition to his sentence, Dellaghelfa was also ordered to pay $6,141,857 in restitution to the Medicaid program, as well as forfeit $332,675 held in his personal and business bank accounts.
He will also have to serve three years of supervised release after his sentence.
Dellaghelfa will report to prison on Tuesday, Oct. 10 to begin his sentence.
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