A Forsyth County doctor who pleaded guilty to health care fraud in March was sentenced in federal court Monday.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Totenberg sentenced Robert E. Windsor, 55, of Cumming, to three years and two months in federal prison and three years of supervised release.

He was also ordered to serve 200 hours of community service and to pay $1.17 million in restitution to health insurers.

For more than three years, between January 2010 and July 2013, Windsor, who was supposed to be monitoring the neurological health of patients undergoing surgery, “had an unqualified medical assistant monitor surgeries for him, using Windsor’s log-in credentials to make it appear as if he was monitoring the surgeries when he was not,” according to a Department of Justice news release.

Windsor, the release said, was responsible for providing a report at the end of each surgery, which American Neuromonitoring Associates P.C. and its sister company would then use to bill patients and health insurance companies.

The agreement was that Windsor would be paid a fee for each surgery monitored.

However, the assistant who did Windsor’s work was not a doctor and therefore not permitted to perform the monitoring services.

“Patients rightly expect that their physicians will protect their health and safety,” U.S. Attorney John A. Horn said. “Windsor violated that basic trust and placed numerous surgery patients at risk at a time when they were most vulnerable and in need of care.”

On several occasions, Windsor billed for monitoring services he supposedly performed when he was actually on a plane traveling internationally, the release said.

J. Britt Johnson, FBI special agent in charge, described Windsor’s conduct as “not only criminal, [but] reckless and irresponsible.

“It is incomprehensible the lengths that some people will go to defraud our health care system,” said George Crouch, assistant special agent in charge at the FBI Atlanta field office. “But even more reprehensible is the willingness of health care providers like Dr. Windsor to thoughtlessly put patients’ health at risk to profit from the system.”

The case was investigated by the FBI, the Department of Defense’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General.

Assistant United States Attorneys Stephen H. McClain and Nathan P. Kitchens prosecuted the case. Former Assistant United States Attorney Jamie L. Mickelson prosecuted the case prior to Windsor’s guilty plea.