Paramjit Singh Ajrawat has to also pay back over $3 million.
AB Wire
An Indian American physician Paramjit Singh Ajrawat, 60, from Potomac, Maryland, has been sentenced to over 9 years in prison for $3.1 million health care fraud scheme.
U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow sentenced last week Ajrawat to 111 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release for health care fraud, two counts of making a false statement related to a health care program, one count of obstruction of justice, four counts of wire fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft related to a health care fraud scheme in connection with the pain clinic he owned and operated with his wife. Judge Chasanow also entered an order requiring Ajrawat to forfeit and pay restitution of $3,103,874.58.
“This lengthy sentence sends a powerful message that doctors who defraud health insurance programs will be held accountable,” said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein.
Ajrawat was a licensed physician in Maryland who specialized in interventional pain management. He and his wife owned and operated Washington Pain Management Center (WPMC) located in Greenbelt. A federal jury convicted Ajrawat and his wife, Sukhveen Kaur Ajrawat, age 57, also a medical doctor, on September 4, 2015. The government moved to dismiss the charges against Sukhveen Ajrawat after her death on February 1, 2016.
According to evidence presented at the eight day trial, from at least January 2011 through May 2014, the Ajrawats defrauded federal health benefit programs including: Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, said the Justice Department.
The Ajrawats filed claims for procedures that were not performed. Specifically, the Ajrawats performed less expensive procedures but falsely billed for procedures that provided higher reimbursement amounts. The Ajrawats also submitted claims indicating that they had met the requirements for reimbursement, when in fact, they had not met those requirements. Finally, the Ajrawats submitted claims for procedures that had not been performed at all.
For example, the Ajrawats submitted claims that P. Ajrawat had performed nerve block injections with the use of an imaging guidance machine, but P. Ajrawat neither owned nor used such a machine. The Ajrawats also falsely documented patient files to indicate that an imaging guidance machine had been used to verify needle placement and caused the alteration or destruction of patient files to conceal the scheme from auditors and law enforcement.