SPRINGDALE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — KNWA/FOX 24 obtains surveillance video used to investigate a Rogers doctor for Medicaid fraud.
Dr. Brian Hyatt was the medical director of Northwest Medical Center’s behavioral health unit from Jan. 2018 to May 2022. His Medicaid billing privileges have been suspended while he is investigated for Medicaid Fraud. Investigators believe Hyatt was overbilling Medicaid at a time when former patients claimed they hardly ever saw the doctor. As part of that investigation, the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit says it decided to audit all of the care provided to every patient in the unit on March 15, 2022.
This new video was previously edited by state officials before KNWA/FOX 24 received it. It starts with Hyatt entering the hospital and it says he got to the fourth floor at 6:38 a.m. It says Hyatt first entered the patient area of his unit at 8 a.m. You can see him walking the hall with a computer cart and leaving the fourth floor. The video says he left the floor at 8:05 a.m.
The video then shows Hyatt spending about five minutes on the fifth floor, walking the halls with a colleague. A search warrant obtained by MFCU earlier this year stated “Sometimes he pauses at the rooms and may even look in, but he does not enter the room or have patients come out into the hall.” The video KNWA/FOX24 reviewed coincides with this.
In the video, you see his colleague standing in the doorway of some of the rooms.
The video says he got to the third floor at 8:12 a.m. and left at 8:16 a.m. He then took the computer cart back to the fourth floor where he started. The video says he left the fourth floor at 8:19 a.m. and left the hospital one hour and 41 minutes after he got there.
Investigators wrote in the search warrant affidavit, “This video reflects Dr. Hyatt’s total contact with approximately 74 patients” on that day.
It continues, “Dr. Hyatt’s rounds on the units on this day are completed in an average of less than 20 seconds per patient without entering a patient’s room.”
Although all of the video released was from one single day, the affidavit claims a special agent reviewed “several days and hundreds of hours of video and have yet to observe Dr. Hyatt enter a patient’s room or otherwise have direct contact with a patient.”
When Dr. Hyatt is seen on the fifth floor, the surveillance video is time-stamped and appears to be from the 9 a.m. hour, which does not coincide with the timeline that is detailed by the MFCU. KNWA/FOX24 was told investigators believe the timestamp was wrong and that the video reflects an accurate timeline of events.
KNWA/FOX24 called Hyatt’s attorney to ask about the video but has not received a call back at the time of publishing.
Hyatt is also currently facing 15 lawsuits from former patients, several of whom claim False Imprisonment.
