Ontario doctor loses licence after billing government ‘hundreds of thousands’ in services not rendered

An Ontario physician has lost his medical licence after having been found to have billed the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) for services he did not render and were not clinically indicated.In a decision released Dec. 18, 2025, the Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Tribunal ruled to revoke Dr. Foluso Ayomitunde Olusegun Ola’s certificate of registration after an investigation into his OHIP billing data found he had improperly billed for “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in services not rendered—although the precise amount that Dr. Ola overbilled for is unclear from the tribunal documents.Between Jan. 1, 2016 and Oct. 19, 2021, an analysis of Dr. Ola’s OHIP billing data showed that he was paid a grand total of $5.28 million with more than 200,000 fee codes submitted. Within this total, Dr. Ola made 27,012 claims totalling $2.1 million under the “primary mental health care” code. However, an investigation from the college found that “between 88% and 98% of the time,” he billed an assessment for the same patient on the same service date that he billed a mental healthcare code. Dr. Ola, during cross-examination, said he said it was “often impossible to separate” when patients came to him to discuss both mental and physical health concerns. However, he admitted to running the clock concurrently for assessments and primary mental health services, when analysis showed that he would have had to work “17 to 18 hours without breaks” in a single day in order to render the care that he had billed for.“In conclusion, Dr. Ola inappropriately billed OHIP for primary mental health care. He did not spend the required minimum time on primary mental health care. Rather, he combined this time with the time he spent with the patient on other concerns. In other words, he billed OHIP twice for the same thing,” the tribunal said.Other services that Dr. Ola was found to have billed for without rendering included nerve conduction studies and ear syringing/curetting. He billed for ear syringing/curetting 7,154 times during this period, despite only having purchased 2,675 supplies for these services. Similarly, he billed OHIP for nerve conduction studies 3,893 times, despite the fact that his office only ordered 600 one-time-use biosensors that are required to perform the study.Dr. Ola was also found to have billed for several services that were not clinically indicated, such as pulmonary function test for patients who had no documented chronic respiratory condition or persistent respiratory symptoms. In addition, the college investigator also expressed concerns with his Dr. Ola’s prescribing practices and his “failure to follow up on abnormal results for certain patients.”In his defence, Dr. Ola said he misunderstood OHIP’s schedule of benefits, but the tribunal rejected this argument and concluded that the overbilling was systemic and deliberate.Dr. Ola also submitted that the unexpected deaths of some family members and friends in 2022, as well as the lack of opportunity for mentorship, should be considered as factors. However, the tribunal rejected this submission, noting that the deaths in 2022 should have “no bearing” on misconduct that took place between 2016 and 2021.“While we agree that lack of opportunity for mentorship, especially in the context of racialized and internationally trained physicians, may be a factor to consider, we reject its applicability in this case. We did not conclude that Dr. Ola’s overbilling was inadvertent or based on insufficient knowledge of the Schedule of Benefits,” the tribunal wrote. “On the contrary, we concluded that Dr. Ola deliberately overbilled to inflate his own earnings.”In addition to the revocation of his certificate, the tribunal ordered Dr. Ola to pay the Ministry of Finance the maximum fine of $35,000 and pay the college $51,850 in costs. The tribunal noted it did not have the power to order Dr. Ola to pay back all the money he took, but $35,000 is the maximum that it is allowed to fine. “The fine is far less than the amount Dr. Ola deliberately overbilled OHIP,” the tribunal said. “The fine allows us to order some payment to the taxpayers of Ontario, from whom Dr. Ola took the money.”

Ontario doctor loses licence after billing government ‘hundreds of thousands’ in services not rendered

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