A prominent Brentwood optometrist is heading to federal prison after orchestrating a massive healthcare fraud scheme that drained millions from government programs. Helen Boerman, 48, was sentenced on September 10 to 42 months behind bars for her role in defrauding Medicare, TennCare, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. In addition to her prison term, the judge ordered Boerman to pay nearly seven million dollars in restitution and undergo one year of supervised release following her incarceration.
The investigation revealed that Boerman leveraged her business, Brentwood Eye Care, to systematically bill the government for services that were never provided to patients. Prosecutors detailed a deceptive operation where Boerman claimed reimbursement for expensive wound care products that she neither purchased nor utilized. To cover her tracks and ensure the payments continued, she reportedly directed members of her own staff to fabricate medical records that would provide fake supporting evidence for the fraudulent claims.
Court documents indicate the scope of the deception was staggering, with Boerman admitting to submitting roughly eleven million dollars in false claims between March 2020 and October 2024. Of those requests, she successfully pocketed approximately six point nine million dollars before being caught. The complex white collar crime was uncovered through a joint effort involving several agencies, including the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Office of Inspector General for both the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.