D.A.: Podiatrist Charged in $84,000 Medical Billing Scam

A Bardonia podiatrist has been charged with theft and falsifying business records in an $84,000 medical billing scam, according to Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Zugibe.

Dr. Laura Piluso, 44, of 3 Meadow Terrace, Chester, NY, who is a licensed podiatrist at Rockland Podiatry in Bardonia, is accused of submitting hundreds of fraudulent medical bills to health insurance companies including Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Oxford, GHI and Medicare from February 2011 to March 2012.

Zugibe said Piluso is also accused of filing the fraudulent medical bills through her own medical billing company so she could cheat Rockland Podiatry out of its share of her billing. The theft, Zugibe said, was uncovered by another doctor at Rockland Podiatry.

Piluso was charged with second-degree grand larceny and first-degree falsifying business records after an investigation by the Rockland County District Attorney's Special Investigations Unit. She was arraigned in Clarkstown Town Court in New City and released pending a Jan. 16, 2013, hearing.

The charges, Zugibe said, carry penalties of up to 15 years in state prison.