Dentists are using hawkers on the streets of Harlem to lure Medicaid cardholders to their clinics with promises of cash, The Post has learned.
The practice is illegal and often a sign of fraud, according to the New York State Office of the Medicaid Inspector General, which oversees the state’s cash-strapped public insurance fund.
The hawkers unwittingly gave two Post reporters an inside peek at their operations.
“Dentist, dentist, dentist! Get paid $20 to $40! Medicaid!” barked Victor Sotille on the corner of 123rd Street and Lexington Avenue on Friday.
Sotille told a Post reporter that if he has a Medicaid card, he’ll receive $20 cash if he sits for a dental cleaning and $40 for partial denture work.
“There’s a white van around the corner by the Salvation Army ready to take you and bring you right back,” he said.
Approximately 10 people were loaded onto the white Ford Econoline van and driven to Dental Plaza at 2741 Morris Ave. in The Bronx.
A man took the reporter into the bare-bones waiting room of Dental Plaza.
While waiting for the patients to fill out paperwork, the man boasted to the room: “I’m getting them all today. People standing around; I’m bringing them in. It’s money today!”
Sotille — reached later on his cellphone — claimed he was misunderstood.
“I never said anything about money, boss!” Sotille said. “I said you get a free toothbrush worth $20.”
Dr. Frederick Fisher, one of the three dentists at Dental Plaza, denied knowing anything about the hawkers.
“Look at the position you are putting me in. You are going to expose me to a lot of notoriety. I’ve done nothing wrong, and I’m really not comfortable talking to you,” he said.
He referred questions to his parent company, MB Globus, which is the registered owner of the van that brought the people to Dental Plaza.
A former Globus employee told The Post that the company is run out of the Kew Gardens home of David Ibragmov.
Ibragmov, who did not return calls for comment, was indicted in 2005 for allegedly ripping off millions from Medicaid when he was a bookkeeper for Fulton Gentle Family Dentistry in Brooklyn.
MB Globus has between 10 and 20 dentists on its payroll, the former employee said.
Employees were told payments to patients were to cover transportation and meals, as per Medicaid rules, the former staffer said.
But Medicaid doesn’t mandate such benefits, said Wanda Fischer from the state Inspector General.
A second medical dental operation observed by The Post was local to Harlem.
“Money, money, money! Make some money! Go to the dentist!” a hawker told a Post reporter on Lexington Avenue near 124th Street. “You got a Medicaid card?”
The tout told the reporter he’d get $15 for a checkup.
He brought the reporter to East Harlem Community Dental at 2022 Lexington Ave.
The clinic’s sole dentist, Dr. Oleg Charanov, said there are many hawkers outside his office but that the person he employs only hands out fliers.
He said he doesn’t know why anyone would offer $15 and bring a patient to his clinic.
“It doesn’t mean he works for me,” Charanov said, then suggested someone had set him up to “run me out of business.”