Federal jury clears Kachare of $12 million health care, mail fraud.
By The American Bazaar Staff
NEW YORK: A federal jury in Utica, New York has found Dilip D. Kachare, a Utica, New York physician, not guilty of three counts of health care fraud and 16 counts of mail fraud following a four week trial before United States District Judge David N. Hurd.
The verdict last week follows a prior three week trial in October-November 2013, when a mistrial was declared after a jury was unable to reach a decision after three days of deliberation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a press release.
Kachare, 60, was indicted in November, 2012, and had faced 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000 on the health care fraud counts and a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment; and a fine of up to $250,000 on the mail fraud counts.
According to the FBI, Kachare maintains an outpatient and inpatient practice in internal medicine. In addition to his office practice, he treats patients at St. Elizabeth Medical Center, Faxton St. Lukes Healthcare, and a number of nursing homes in the Utica, New York area.
The health care fraud counts alleged that between 2002 and the end of September 2012, Kachare engaged in a scheme to fraudulently obtain payments from health care benefit programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and numerous private insurers.
The indictment alleged he did this by submitting claims for reimbursement representing that he had, on an ongoing and daily basis, provided a certain number of patients with the medical services designated by certain medical codes when, pursuant to the criteria in those codes, it would have been impossible for any physician to provide the medical treatment to that number of patients in a single day.
The indictment also alleged that certain medical services, which are described in medical codes, known as CPT codes, have “typical” time components associated with them, and that during the course of the fraud scheme, the aggregate of the “typical” time in the codes submitted for reimbursement by Kachare consistently exceeded 24 hours per day.
The mail fraud counts alleged the same fraud scheme as alleged in the health care fraud counts, with each mail fraud count listing a check mailed to Kachare by the Medicare carrier containing payment for services purportedly provided on certain dates.
The approximate amount of the fraud alleged in the indictment was $12 million.