Billed patients getting injections from unauthorized personnel.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: An Indian American doctor in Tampa Bay, Florida, has agreed to pay $400,000 in restitution to the US government for orchestrating a scheme to bilk money from the federal Medicare program.
Ravi Sharma was given up to federal investigators in January of 2012, when a former office worker told them that he was allowed unqualified personnel under his employ to be giving varicose injections and weight-loss counseling. These go against not only ethics and conduct codes for doctors, but also go against the regulations of Medicare, which states that it will not cover procedures carried out by unauthorized personnel.
Medicare was only supposed to be billed for patients who received injections from Sharma himself. However, Sharma knowingly billed Medicare for the procedures anyway, and will now pay $400,000 to the Department of Justice in a False Claims Act settlement.
The former employee who turned Sharma in is Patti Lovell, who told investigators that Sharma was allowing illicit injections by his employees between 2009 and 2010. Lovell even presented text messages which show Sharma sanctioning the unauthorized procedures. Despite the malfeasance, however, there has not been any patient harm or adverse effects uncovered as a result of Sharma’s actions.
For her part in aiding the investigation, Lovell will receive $72,000 from that settlement.
As a board-certified physician in his state, Sharma is also liable to be prosecuted by the state government of Florida, but so far no action has been taken, and likely will not be. Sharma’s settlement with Medicare will allow him to continue to participate in Medicare as well as other federal programs. However, Sharma closed his two locations – Premiere Vein Centers and Life’s New Image – in 2010.
He will also be part of a three-year Integrity Agreement with the US Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, which mandates that Sharma attend training courses and seminars about Medicare, Medicaid, and billing procedures, among other things.