Nevada doctor charged in $95 million skin substitute scheme with a hidden 40% kickback
The Justice Department filed charges on August 4, 2026 against Dr. Stephen Dubin, a doctor in Nevada, alleging that he orchestrated a $95 million Medicare fraud scheme involving expensive and unnecessary wound coverings applied to elderly patients. According to the charges, he submitted sham invoices to Medicare that did not reflect a 40% kickback, and applied skin substitutes to patients who were not good candidates, including those with infected wounds and those not helped by prior treatments. The Justice Department said he used his Medicare earnings to finance a lavish lifestyle that included multimillion-dollar yachts. These are allegations. Dubin is presumed innocent unless a court finds otherwise.
- Year
- 2026
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Charged (an allegation, not a conviction)
- Reported loss
- $95.0 million
- Victims
- Not stated in the sources
- Schemes
- Skin substitute and wound graft fraud
- Last reviewed
- 2026-10-19
The facts, as recorded
- The Justice Department filed charges against Dr. Stephen Dubin of Nevada on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, alleging he orchestrated a $95 million Medicare fraud scheme involving expensive and unnecessary wound coverings applied to elderly patients.
- The New York Times, in a 2025 investigation, included Dubin among doctors it examined. Skin substitutes are bandages manufactured out of dehydrated placentas that cost thousands of dollars per square inch but have not been found to help most wounds heal any better than regular bandages.
- In a 2025 interview with the Times, Dubin said he bought the bandages from Legacy Medical Consultants, a large skin substitute manufacturer, at a steep discount and kept that discount after receiving payment from Medicare. He described the split of the Medicare reimbursement as usually 60/40: the other side getting 60 and the provider 40.
- According to the new charges, he submitted sham invoices to Medicare that did not reflect the 40% kickback.
- The charges allege he applied skin substitutes unnecessarily to patients who were not good candidates, including those with infected wounds and those not helped by prior treatments.
- The Justice Department said Dubin used his Medicare earnings to finance a lavish lifestyle that included commissioning multiple multimillion-dollar yachts.
- A Legacy Medical Consultants executive was charged in June 2026 with offering illegal kickbacks, bribes and rebates to healthcare providers that used the company's skin substitutes. The Justice Department estimates that executive earned $24 million from the scheme.
- Dubin said in 2025 that he used skin substitutes only when they were necessary. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new charges.
Why this case matters
It adds a kickback hidden from Medicare. The charges allege that Dubin sent Medicare invoices that did not reflect a 40% kickback. In his own 2025 account to the New York Times he described a 60/40 split of the Medicare reimbursement, with the other side getting 60 and the provider 40, and the Justice Department’s charges allege that the invoices did not reflect it.
What the Times reported about the product
The article describes skin substitutes as bandages made from dehydrated placentas that cost thousands of dollars per square inch and, as the Times reported, have not been found to help most wounds heal any better than regular bandages. It reports that Medicare paid nearly $15 billion for them in 2025, and that after the Times investigation the Trump administration sharply cut reimbursement rates.
The caveat
The Justice Department’s charges are allegations, and Dubin is presumed innocent unless a court finds otherwise. He said in 2025 that he used skin substitutes only when they were necessary, and the article says he did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the charges. Legacy Medical Consultants itself is not alleged in this article to have been charged; the article reports that an executive was. This page relies on one news account of the charges because the Justice Department’s own release was not read.
Sources
- Justice Dept. charges doctor in $95 million skin substitute fraud scheme. Las Vegas Sun, reprinting The New York Times (Sarah Kliff). Accessed 2026-10-19. Supports: Every fact above: the August 4, 2026 charges and the $95 million figure, the description of skin substitutes, Dubin's 2025 interview account of the 60/40 arrangement, the sham invoices, the unnecessary applications, the yachts, the Legacy Medical Consultants executive charged in June and Dubin's statement that he used the products only when necessary.