A Nevada wound care specialist, Dr Stephen Dubin, has been accused of cheating Medicare by applying unneeded, expensive wound coverings to seniors, and using the profits to buy flashy yachts, reports The New York Times.
Last week the Justice Department filed charges again Dubin alleging that he orchestrated a $95m Medicare fraud scheme that involved applying costly skin substitutes to elderly patients.
Dubin was included in a 2025 New York Times investigation into skin substitutes – bandages manufactured out of dehydrated placentas that cost thousands of dollars per square inch but have not been found to help most wounds heal any better than regular bandages.
Medicare paid nearly $15m for skin substitutes in 2025, a spike that analysts have called one of the largest examples of waste in the federal health programme’s history.
After the Times investigation, the Trump administration sharply cut reimbursement rates for skin substitutes. Spending on the products has since plummeted to $100m so far this year.
In an interview with the Times last year, Dubin had said his business involved buying bandages from Legacy Medical Consultants, a large skin substitute manufacturer, at a steep discount. He was able to keep that discount after receiving payment from Medicare.
“They float out a percentage, it’s usually 60/40 – they’re getting 60, you’re getting 40,” he said then, referring to the portion of the Medicare reimbursement.
According to the new charges, he had submitted “sham invoices” to Medicare that “did not reflect the 40% kickback”.
He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Legacy Medical Consultants executive was charged in June with “offering illegal kickbacks, bribes and rebates” to healthcare providers that used the company’s skin substitutes. The Justice Department estimates that the Legacy executive earned $24m from the scheme.
Dubin is also charged with applying skin substitutes unnecessarily to patients who were not good candidates for the coverings, including those who had infected wounds and those who were not helped by prior treatments.
The Justice Department said Dubin used his Medicare earnings to finance a lavish lifestyle that included the commissioning of multiple multimillion-dollar yachts.
The doctor had said in 2025 that he used skin substitutes only when they were necessary, but he also described facing increasing competition for patients, as strong financial incentives to use the bandages drew in more providers.
He retired in 2024, in part because the wound care market in Las Vegas became too crowded.
“It’s lucrative, and it’s low risk,” he told the Times last year. “You’re not going to get sued for putting a membrane on somebody.”
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Prison and hefty fines for fraudster US pharmacist and assistant
Hundreds charged in US multi-billion-dollar healthcare fraud crackdown
US doctor’s 59-year jail sentence for unnecessary procedures