A couple, who falsely diagnosed dozens of patients with Alzheimer’s Disease, will spend time behind bars after being convicted of conspiracy, mail fraud and healthcare fraud charges.
Patients said they spent months undergoing treatment while planning out their final years, thinking they would die soon. Some quit their jobs or took one last special trip. One killed himself; others said they considered suicide.
The woman, a former director of an Ohio memory-loss clinic accused by dozens of patients of falsely diagnosing them with Alzheimer’s disease, has been sentenced on federal fraud charges, along with her physician husband.
Sherry-Ann Jenkins received nearly six years in prison while her physician husband, Oliver Jenkins, got a 41-month sentence. The couple was convicted in March after being indicted in May 2020.
AP reports that the courts said Sherry-Ann Jenkins was not trained to provide any medical care but presented herself as a doctor and billed patients for unneeded treatments.
The indictment did not directly accuse the couple of falsely diagnosing her patients, but more than 60 people had filed lawsuits since 2017 accusing her of lying to them, saying they had Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia.
The patients who sued the couple and the clinic resolved the cases out of court.
Nearly all of those diagnosed by Sherry-Ann Jenkins began seeing her after suffering traumatic brain injuries or worsening cognitive issues.
She operated the Toledo Clinic Cognitive Centre through the Toledo Clinic, a multi-specialty medical centre, for slightly more than two years, according to court records.
She would diagnose and treat patients and order tests despite having no training or qualifications, prosecutors said. She also billed patients for treatments that weren’t medically necessary, including memory exercises and using coconut oil to treat cognitive disorders, they said.
Her husband, an ear, nose, and throat doctor and a former partner in the Toledo Clinic, signed off on the tests and was listed as the referring physician on billing even though he was rarely at the clinic and never saw the patients, prosecutors have said.
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