A corona vaccination doctor accused of suspected fraud did not appear at the start of the trial. The main hearing has been suspended, a spokeswoman for the regional court in Nuremberg announced on Thursday. The defendant informed the court by telephone that morning that he had already been in Egypt for some time.
The public prosecutor’s office has applied to issue an arrest warrant against the 38-year-old because of the risk of flight, said the court spokeswoman. The chamber will now discuss this. The doctor worked as a vaccination doctor in various vaccination centers in Bavaria during the corona pandemic between March 2021 and December 2022.
The Nuremberg Public Prosecutor’s Office, which is responsible for fraud and corruption in the health care system, accuses the man of having billed for services not provided and travel costs in 18 cases during this time. He is said to have charged particularly high travel costs by fabricating assignments to vaccination centers far away and higher flat rates by feigning shifts at weekends. He is also said to have stated that he worked more hours for vaccinations than he actually did.
The Bavarian Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians is said to have suffered losses of around 640,000 euros as a result. According to the Attorney General’s Office, the accused made the false statements via an online portal that enabled fully automated billing. The accusation is therefore computer fraud.