Chiropractor convicted of ACC fraud

20 October 2010

Media release

Chiropractor convicted of ACC fraud for phantom treatments

Former All Black and now Auckland-based chiropractor Dean Kenny has been found guilty of defrauding ACC. Mr Kenny billed ACC for 28 blocks of treatment sessions that his clients never received.

Mr Kenny had been providing chiropractic services from two clinics in Orewa and Takapuna. He was a registered ACC provider, which meant he could bill ACC for treating injured clients and receive a fee for each treatment.

In September 2009, however, ACC’s investigations unit was alerted to irregularities in his invoices following a complaint from a client.

The investigation team discovered that Mr Kenny had been billing ACC for more sessions than some of his clients had actually received. In the case of 28 patients, he had invoiced ACC for 16 treatments per patient when sometimes the clients had received as few as two sessions.

During an interview with an ACC investigator, Mr Kenny stated he booked in a “block of treatments” for his patients so that if they had to return for additional treatments, there were some treatment sessions already “in the bank”. He had not refunded ACC for treatments not used by patients.

Mr Kenny, of Cheltenham, pleaded guilty to 28 charges under the Crimes Act at North Shore District Court last week. He received a sentence of 225 hours of community work and was ordered to repay $7956.00 to ACC.

The presiding judge said the offence was an abuse of trust of a scheme funded by New Zealand tax payers.

"ACC funds are meant to help injured New Zealanders, not fraudsters. So we welcome this finding and would encourage anyone who suspects ACC fraud to call us on 0508 ACC FRAUD", said ACC's General Manager Claims Management Denise Cosgrove.

Ends

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