A former Thief River Falls chiropractor was sentenced Tuesday, June 18 in U.S. District Court for wire fraud.

Dr. Steven Richard Wiseth, 36, was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison, according to online court records. Wiseth was ordered to report to prison before 10 a.m. Monday, July 22. The court recommended that he should be incarcerated at a federal facility in or near Minnesota or North Dakota. He was also ordered to serve supervised release for one year.

Wiseth was ordered to pay a $100 special assessment and $337,195.11 in restitution. Five other counts of wire fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft were dismissed. The U.S. Marshals Office doesn’t provide mug shots to the media.

In January, during a plea hearing, Wiseth agreed that, were the case to go to trial, the prosecution would prove that he billed insurance companies more than $3.1 million, including bills for hundreds of treatments that were not provided or were overbilled from around March 2013 to about April 2015.

In particular with regard to the wire fraud charge, Wiseth admitted that he electronically submitted claim information for a family of four to Blue Cross/Blue Shield. The claim information pertained to treatments that were purported to have happened during a grand opening event March 28, 2013. However, none of the people were treated. For one of the individuals, the claims totalled $240. The claims were routed through a third-party service provider in Florida, which meant that the billing invoices crossed state lines.

During the two-year time frame, the insurance companies paid Wiseth and his clinic, Health Quest Family Chiropractic, more than $1 million. Health Quest closed several years ago in Thief River Falls, but it continued to operate in Grand Forks, N.D.

Wiseth voluntarily surrendered his Minnesota chiropractic license in 2017, according to the Minnesota Board of Chiropractic Examiners website. As part of that agreement, Wiseth would be able to reapply for reinstatement of his Minnesota license three years later if he met several conditions. He was also required to notify the board if he practiced chiropractic care in another state. The surrender stemmed from the same charges related to this case.

Wiseth’s scheme was dependent on maximizing patient volume at Health Quest, and he held promotional events where he gave away free food and drink, prizes and gift certificates to induce current and prospective patients to visit Health Quest. After the promotional events, Wiseth billed insurance companies for chiropractic services to a substantial number of people who attended the events, including billing for services that weren’t provided. In some cases, Wiseth used the personal and insurance information of attendees to bill their insurance companies for services that were not provided, sometimes unbeknownst to the attendee.

According to court documents, Wiseth held a grand opening event March 28, 2013, when his office moved to another location in Thief River Falls. He then submitted bills to insurance companies, indicating he had treated 178 patients that day and provided 592 services.

On Feb. 13, 2014, Wiseth held a promotional event at Health Quest that he referred to as “ValenSpine’s Day.” Wiseth submitted bills to insurance companies, indicating he had treated about 219 patients that day and provided 641 services.

Court documents also stated that Wiseth submitted false bills for treatments with a wobble chair, which is meant to help patients develop their core strength and endurance. Given the type of medical billing codes used, Wiseth indicated that he supervised the patient as the person used the wobble chair for at least eight minutes during a 15-minute period. However, this was false since there was no direct supervision and the wobble chairs were often only used for a minute or two minutes. For these types of treatments, Wiseth billed the insurance companies more than $619,000, and he was paid $331,420.