2 years’ jail for ex-national swimmer who cheated dental patients of over S$388,000 in MediSave funds

SINGAPORE — A former national swimmer and dentist from the Smile Division Dental Group has been sentenced to two years’ jail for his involvement in a scam to cheat patients of their MediSave funds.

When handing out the sentence, District Judge Kan Shuk Weng said Daniel Liew Yaoxiang, who represented Singapore in the 2000 Olympics and 2001 South-east Asian Games, was “clearly not a blind follower” in the crooked scheme, which had been masterminded by another dentist at the company.

Liew was convicted of 28 charges of conspiring to cheat, and two charges of forgery last month. Another 250 cheating charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

Judge Kan said Liew, 37, should have known better, given his age, educational qualifications and job experience in both the private and public sectors.

Even as she recognised his past contributions as a national swimmer, she said his sentence “should reflect the gravity of his offences”.

HOW THE SCHEME WORKED

Court documents stated that Liew dishonestly claimed S$388,700 from six patients’ MediSave accounts by inflating the number of day surgeries he performed on them.

Each patient’s treatment lasted only one or two days, but the clinic made 24 to 32 false claims for each of them, in a scheme that was devised in 2009 by another dentist, Steven Ang Kiam Hau.

Ang was sentenced to two and a half years in jail last August.

Ang’s plan was to make the clinic split MediSave claims to circumvent the daily withdrawal limits for day surgery imposed by the Ministry of Health (MOH).

He tricked the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board into disbursing more than S$434,000 from 14 patients’ MediSave accounts to the Smile Division clinic in Orchard where he worked.

When Smile Division’s owner and managing director, Cecil Goh Chin Chye, learnt about the scheme, he did not stop it.

Instead, he allegedly went on to “franchise” it across all of the group’s clinics.

Goh’s case is still pending before the State Courts, along with the case of the firm’s practice manager Serene Yeo Meow Koon, who is accused of training staff across the dental group’s clinics on how to participate in the scheme.

HOW LIEW GOT INVOLVED

Liew — who practised at Smile Division clinics in Hougang, Choa Chu Kang and Clementi — got involved when he joined Smile Division as a 29-year-old with just over one year of experience in private practice.

The scheme was already ongoing when he joined the company.

He followed the modus operandi, which would begin with staff conducting “financial counselling” to check if patients had sufficient funds in their MediSave account to cover the full cost of the treatment.

If so, they would be offered a “package” that would enable them to do just that, and Liew would agree on the package and proceed to perform the treatment.

The prosecution sought a jail sentence of between 30 and 36 months for Liew, but his lawyer Sant Singh asked for 15 months instead, pointing out that the former national swimmer is a person with “such eminence and standing in society that the shame of going to prison is sufficient enough punishment”.

Furthermore, he would be permanently disqualified from practising as a dentist following his conviction, which would impact his livelihood and ability to support his two sons, aged two and six, the Senior Counsel said.

He added that Liew had paid a high price for his transgressions since the long-drawn out investigations had caused him to suffer a relapse in depression, on top of him making “more than full restitution” by restoring more than S$470,000 — the monies the CPF Board disbursed plus interest — to rectify his mistake.

But Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Teo Guan Siew argued that a “clear message” needs to be sent out that medical practitioners who deliberately undermine the Government’s healthcare policy at the expense of the future medical needs of their patients “will not be let off lightly”.

Liew had in particular undermined “the Government’s efforts to ensure that Singaporeans get quality healthcare without an onerous tax burden”, he said.

Furthermore, when auditors came knocking, Liew committed further crimes by forging clinical notes to deceive another public institution — MOH — instead of coming clean, DPP Teo noted.

In light of the serious case of fraud against a “vital” public institution, the prosecution “submit that the public interest clearly mandates that the accused be punished severely”, he added.

After his sentencing, Liew was granted his request to start serving his sentence on May 13. When making the application, Mr Singh said Liew, who was made a bankrupt, will need some time to meet with his bankruptcy officers to sort out matters before going to prison.

Liew remains out on a S$600,000 bail in the meantime.