Patient ‘Runner’ Loses Appeal Over $155,000 Restitution Award

A Minnesota man convicted for his role in a kickback scheme aimed at defrauding automobile-insurance companies must pay restitution for every patient he recruited for a pair of Twin Cities chiropractic clinics, the Eighth Circuit said.

Abdisalan Hussein qualified as a “runner” for the 53 patients he steered to the clinics from 2013 forward under Minnesota law. And, because he was the clinics’ runner, the insurance companies had no obligation to reimburse those facilities for any of the services they provided, the court said in Wednesday opinion.

A runner is someone who “directly procures or solicits prospective patients” for “pecuniary ...