Indians among 111 charged in major US healthcare fraud

The 111 people charged across nine cities are accused of various healthcare fraud-related crimes, including conspiracy to defraud Medicare, criminal false claims, money laundering and aggravated identify theft.

Medicare is a government insurance programme that covers Americans who are 65 and older. About 45 million elderly and disabled Americans are enrolled in taxpayer-funded Medicare plans. Collectively, the doctors, nurses, health care company owners falsely billed Medicare more than USD 225 million.

"With this takedown, we have identified and shut down large-scale fraud schemes operating throughout the country. This is the largest federal healthcare fraud takedown in our nation's history," said Attorney General Eric Holder who announced the charges with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

More than 700 agents from the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services arrested defendants in Brooklyn, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Louisiana, Miami and Tampa. The agents also executed 16 search warrants across the country in connection with the ongoing investigation.

According to court documents, defendants participated in schemes to submit claims to Medicare for treatments that were medically unnecessary and often never provided.
In Chicago, Indian-origin doctor Jaswinder Rai Chhibber, president and owner of a medical clinic, was arrested and presented in court.

He is charged with one count of healthcare fraud. According to the charges, Chhibber, 48, submitted reimbursement claims for medical procedures he never rendered.
He allegedly performed complicated diagnostic tests on patients without a medical need for those tests besides billing insurance providers for tests never actually performed on patients.

In Detroit, among those charged were Vishnu Pradeep Meda, 30, Ram Naresh Rajulapati, 31 and Surya Nallani, 43. Nallani was charged with fraud in connection with an approximately USD 8.5 million physicians visiting group operation. She billed Medicare for home visits which required her to be physically present, when in fact she was abroad.

In Tampa, Florida, physician Jayam Krishna Iyer was charged with submitting approximately 457,000 dollars in claims to Medicare for services she did not render.

Another Indian-origin person, Harsh Mehta, owner of a pharmacy, billed the medical insurers for pharmaceutical products he did not dispense. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said healthcare professionals from "Los Angeles to New York and cities in between have cheated taxpayers and patients alike by defrauding the Medicare programme".

Thirty-two people were charged in Miami for falsely billing Medicare USD 55 million for home healthcare, durable medical equipment and prescription drugs. Twenty-one defendants were charged in Detroit for a USD 23 million fraud, while in Brooklyn, New York, 10 people were involved in USD 90 million of false billings.

In Houston, 9 individuals were charged for schemes involving eight million dollars while in Dallas, seven were indicted for conspiring to submit USD 2.8 million in false billing to Medicare. In Chicago, charges were filed against 11 individuals for falsely billing Medicare more than six million dollars. Last year, federal agencies recovered a record four billion dollars from fraudsters, Sebelius said.