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Page 68 of 79

August 25, 2015

A federal jury in Miami convicted Roger Rousseau, former medical director of Health Care Solutions Network Inc. (HCSN), and three HCSN therapists for their roles in a scheme to fraudulently bill Medicare and Florida Medicaid more than $63 million.  HCSN is a now-defunct partial hospitalization program that purported to provide intensive treatment for mental illness.  According to the evidence presented at trial, HCSN billed Medicare and Medicaid for mental health services that were not medically necessary or never provided and paid kickbacks to assisted living facility owners and operators in Miami who, in exchange, referred beneficiaries to HCSN.  DOJ

August 19, 2015

Yaroslav (Steven) Proshak, former owner of Southern California ambulance company ProMed Medical Transportation, was convicted of health care fraud charges in connection with a Medicare fraud scheme of at least $2.4 million.  According to the evidence, Proshak and two of his managers conspired to bill Medicare for ambulance transportation services for individuals whom the defendants knew did not need such services.  They also instructed EMTs who worked at ProMed to conceal the true medical conditions of patients they were transporting by altering requisite paperwork and creating fraudulent documents to justify the transportation services.  DOJ

August 19, 2015

Arizona physician Dr. Bashir Azher agreed to pay $207,988 to resolve allegations he violated the False Claims Act by submitting false bills to Medicare for prostate laser ablation procedures, commonly known as Green Light prostatectomies.  Specifically, the government charged Dr. Azher with submitting false claims for reimbursement for prostate laser ablation procedures that were too short to generate a therapeutic benefit, failed to meet professionally recognized standards of care, were medically unnecessary, and/or violated applicable Medicare regulations.  The government’s allegations originated in a whistleblower lawsuit filed by Dr. Arnaldo Trabucco under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act.  He will receive a yet-to-be-determined whistleblower award.  DOJ

August 18, 2015

Hovik Simitian, owner and operator of three medical clinics located in Los Angeles, pleaded guilty to submitting more than $4.5 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare.  Simitian admitted he and his co-conspirators paid cash kickbacks to patient recruiters who brought Medicare beneficiaries to his clinics, Columbia Medical Group Inc., Life Care Medical Clinic and Safe Health Medical Clinic.  Simitian also admitted they billed Medicare for lab tests and other services that were not medically necessary or not actually provided and created false documentation reflecting the services had been provided.  DOJ

August 14, 2015

Oklahoma-based East Central Family Health Center agreed to pay $825,000 to settle charges it violated the False Claims Act by submitting false Medicaid claims.  Specifically, the government charged East Central, which is a designated federally qualified health center (FQHC), with submitting claims to the Oklahoma Medicaid Program for reimbursement for patients of non-FQHC health care providers and who were not East Central patients.  DOJ

August 12, 2015

Oswego Hospital will pay $1,456,457.33 to resolve False Claims Act charges stemming from healthcare billing improprieties the hospital self disclosed to the federal government.  Dr. Vilas Patil, a physician formerly working as an independent contractor with Oswego, paid $204,365.97 to resolve False Claims Act liability in connection with a related investigation.  Specifically, Oswego identified claims that were paid by federal and state payors where the supporting medical record documentation: (1) was not created or could not be located; (2) contained incorrect service dates; (3) were simply verbatim treatment notes from prior appointments with patients; and/or (4) failed to include time-related information required for certain time-based billing codes.  DOJ

August 3, 2015

Rouzbeh Javaherian, owner of Los Angeles-based Westaid Pharmacy and Medical Supply, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and to pay $644,060 in restitution for his role in a fraud scheme involving the Medicare Part D prescription drug program.  Specifically, Javaherian paid illegal cash kickbacks to Medicare beneficiaries to induce them to submit their prescriptions to Westaid.  Javaherian then filled some of those prescriptions, but also submitted false claims to Medicare Part D plan sponsors for prescriptions that he did not actually fill.  DOJ

July 24, 2015

Mohammed Sadiq was sentenced to 80 months in prison and to pay $14.1 million in restitution for his leading role in a $12.6 million Medicare and tax fraud scheme.  Sadiq, who owned and directed operations at two home health care companies in Detroit, admitted billing Medicare for home health services not medically necessary or provided and paying kickbacks to patient recruiters to obtain Medicare beneficiary information used in his scheme.  DOJ

July 10, 2015

Detroit area doctor Farid Fata was sentenced to 45 years in prison and to forfeit $17.6 million for his role in a health care fraud scheme that included administering medically unnecessary infusions or injections to 553 individual patients and submitting to Medicare and private insurance companies approximately $34 million in fraudulent claims.  DOJ

June 30, 2015

Community Health Network agreed to pay $20,324,902.22 to resolve allegations it violated the False Claims Act by submitting false claims to the Medicare and Medicaid programs.  According to the government, since the late 1990s through October 2009, CHN had contracts with free-standing ambulatory surgery centers under which they  would provide out-patient surgical services to CHN patients.  CHN would then bill Medicare and Medicaid for the surgical services through the billing departments of its hospitals so it could improperly receive higher reimbursement rates.  DOJ
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