Financial regulators have caught doctors and others who cheated insurance companies out of 1 billion won ($728,330) by disguising skin-cosmetic procedures as treatments for manual therapies and athlete's foot.

The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) and the Busan South Police Station said Monday that they arrested more than 270 people, including doctors, brokers, and bogus patients, who participated in the insurance fraud.

In May, the FSS investigated organized insurance fraud schemes based on numerous tips from the Insurance Fraud Report Center and requested the police to investigate.

According to the FSS, a doctor who runs a hospital in Busan designed a scheme to cover the cost of skin beauty procedures, such as thread lifting, fillers, Botox, and water light therapy, with actual loss insurance. He lured fake patients and created false medical records. He also operated multiple broadcasting and YouTube channels to raise brand recognition and promote his clinic.

When a patient paid for a skin beauty package, the doctor falsely issued a document stating that he had been treated for an athlete's foot. He was sophisticated enough to instruct his staff not to issue false medical records on dates when patients were treated at other hospitals.

The doctor even distributed a letter to patients with tips on filing a complaint with the FSS if their insurance company denied their claims based on the false records they submitted.

Employees maintained duplicate medical records to separate the records of actual cosmetic procedures from those of fraudulent athlete's foot treatments. Some even lured patients in, receiving 3-5 percent of what they paid at the clinic as an incentive.

More than 10 brokers lured patients by convincing them that the expensive cosmetic procedures could be covered by actual loss insurance. The doctor paid those brokers about 20 percent of the patients' payments.

More than 270 patients who participated in the scheme submitted false medical records to insurance companies and collected 1 billion won in lost wages.

“There are many cases of criminal punishment not only for the hospitals and brokers who led the insurance fraud but also for the patients who agreed and participated in their tempting offers,” the FSS said. “Policyholders should be very careful not to get involved in insurance fraud.”