Utah NP, RN and Podiatrist Indicted on 18 Counts in $29M Medicare Wound Care Fraud

A Utah nurse practitioner, a registered nurse and a podiatrist have been federally indicted in connection with an alleged Medicare fraud scheme that prosecutors say resulted in roughly $29 million in improper payouts, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah. A federal grand jury in St. George returned the 18-count indictment on May 12, 2026.

Those charged:

• Emily Kelly, 45, Washington City — registered nurse practitioner, Summit’s St. George clinic; charged with health care fraud and wire fraud
• Drake Dell Broadbent, 55, Santa Clara — registered nurse, Summit’s St. George clinic; charged with health care fraud, wire fraud, and false statements relating to health care matters
• Ryan Scott Ellsworth, 47, Highland — podiatrist, owner of Summit Foot and Ankle and Amble Medical; charged with health care fraud, wire fraud, and false statements relating to health care matters

The defendants are presumed innocent, and the allegations have not been proven in court.

Ellsworth owned and operated Summit Foot and Ankle, which has clinics across Utah, including locations in St. George, Payson, Provo, Sandy, and West Valley City, as well as Amble Medical in Highland. Kelly, a Utah-licensed registered nurse practitioner, and Broadbent, a Utah-licensed registered nurse, worked primarily out of Summit’s St. George clinic, according to the indictment.

Between July 2021 and December 2025, the three allegedly submitted false claims to Medicare for skin substitute services that were either medically unnecessary or provided to patients without qualifying wounds, federal prosecutors said. Skin substitutes are advanced wound care products typically used for chronic, non-healing wounds.

Under Medicare guidelines cited in the indictment, billing for a skin substitute is permitted only when the treatment is medically necessary and after a wound has received at least 30 days of basic wound care. Prosecutors allege the defendants applied skin substitutes to patients who did not meet that threshold and continued treatment when it was no longer warranted.

This case is part of a broader federal enforcement surge. Medicare spending on skin substitutes skyrocketed from $256 million in 2019 to more than $10 billion in 2024 — and DOJ officials have said there are “a lot more skin substitute cases in the pipeline.” The Ellsworth indictment fits squarely within the DOJ Fraud Section’s Wound Care Initiative.

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The Money, the Copays, and the Investigation

Medicare paid a combined $29 million on roughly $61 million in total claims across the three defendants:

• Kelly: ~$17M billed / $10M+ paid to Summit Foot and Ankle
• Broadbent: ~$102K paid — a smaller figure that reflects his role as an unqualified provider performing procedures outside his scope of practice at Ellsworth’s direction
• Ellsworth: ~$44M billed / $19M+ paid to Summit Foot and Ankle

Specifically, the indictment alleges that Ellsworth caused Broadbent to provide skin substitute services that were outside Broadbent’s professional scope of practice, then submitted those claims to Medicare under Ellsworth’s own name and provider number.

The indictment also alleges the defendants routinely waived patient copayments that would have totaled thousands of dollars per Medicare beneficiary — a pattern federal prosecutors have cited in prior skin substitute fraud cases as a sign that patients were receiving services they neither needed nor sought.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI Salt Lake City Field Office, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, and IRS Criminal Investigation. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Holyoak announced the indictment, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Y. Hirata is prosecuting the case. The three defendants are scheduled to make their initial court appearance on June 8 at the federal courthouse in St. George.

This indictment is the latest in a growing pattern of federal cases naming nurses individually alongside the physicians or practice owners they worked for. In July 2025, at least 24 nurses were among the 324 defendants charged in the DOJ’s largest-ever healthcare fraud takedown — a $14.6 billion case spanning all 50 states. And in May 2025, a Louisiana nurse practitioner was convicted in a $2 million Medicare fraud scheme involving fake telehealth exams and medically unnecessary equipment orders. Federal prosecutors have made it consistently clear that staff who sign off on charts, perform procedures, or submit billing codes face the same exposure as the practice owner.

The charges against Broadbent in particular illustrate a specific and underappreciated risk: performing procedures outside your scope of practice at an employer’s direction does not insulate you from criminal liability. The indictment names him as a defendant, not a witness.

For RNs and APRNs working in physician-led wound care or podiatry practices, the documentation standard that matters most here is straightforward: the 30-day basic wound care requirement must be clearly and contemporaneously charted before advanced skin substitute products are applied. If that documentation isn’t in the chart, the billing shouldn’t go out — regardless of who is asking. Nurses working in any setting that bills advanced wound care products should also be aware that CMS implemented significant payment reductions for skin substitutes beginning in 2026, which may increase pressure on some practices to maximize billing on remaining eligible cases.

Nurses who notice billing practices that do not match the patient’s chart have options. Internal compliance hotlines, state nursing boards, and the HHS-OIG fraud hotline can all be used to flag concerns. Federal whistleblower laws provide protection from retaliation, and qui tam claims filed under the False Claims Act can include a financial recovery for the person who reports the fraud.

🤔 Nurses – what do you think about this case, and other recent wound care prosecutions? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Crime