Puri and others paid over $3.3 million to settle the case.
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: There was no finding of liability and entrepreneur Sanjay Puri and his Baltimore, Maryland-based medical billing company Engage Medical, Inc. denied any liability in an alleged fraudulent medical billing scheme which was settled earlier this year, the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland has clarified.
The Department of Justice (DoJ) issued the clarification in a press release on Thursday, in regard to the settlement which took place in February:
“The United States Attorney’s Office has clarified its February 18, 2014 press release concerning a civil settlement dated February 14, 2014 with medical billing company Engage Medical, Inc., its owner Sanjay Puri and three medical practices. The parties agreed to pay a total of $3,340,979 to settle civil claims that they had overbilled the Government for nuclear stress tests.
“There was, however, no finding of liability, and Mr. Puri denied liability. The claims settled by the agreement were allegations. As the agreement stated, the parties settled to “avoid the delay, uncertainty, inconvenience and expense of protracted litigation.” Mr. Puri agreed as part of the settlement to “cooperate fully” with any ongoing investigation.”
Puri, the chairman of the US-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC), and founder and CEO of Optimos Inc., an IT firm based in Reston, Virginia, and other individuals were fined over $3.3 million US Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, as part of a sting operation on four clinics, earlier this year.
According to the earlier press release put out by the Department of Justice, the four medical practices over billed for nuclear stress tests, asking for more money in compensation than they were actually owed. The fraudulent activity occurred between July 31, 2007 and March 8, 2011, throughout the Washington, DC/southern Maryland/northern Virginia metropolitan area.
“Baltimore, Maryland B Medical billing company Engage Medical, Inc. […] and [owner] Sanjay Puri have agreed to pay $544,500; Advanced Cardiology Center and its owners Pankaj Lal, M.D., Mubashar Choudry, M.D. and Moshin Ijaz, M.D. agreed to pay $1,894,549.50; Reva Gill, M.D. and Kenilworth Internists, P.A. agreed to pay $242,204; and Sureshkumar Muttath, M.D. agreed to pay $659,726,” says the DoJ press release, adding to a total of $3,340,979.
Lal is a cardiologist based in Rockville, Maryland with degrees from the Maulana Azad Medical College and LNJP Hospital, both of which are in New Delhi. Choudry is also a cardiologist, and earned his medical degree from the Allama Iqbal Medical College in Lahore, while Ijaz earned his degree from the King Edward Medical College in Lahore, too. Gill is a specialist in internal medicine at Kenilworth Internists, located in Riverdale, Maryland, as is Muttath.
Puri had later issued a statement, in February, on what he believed transpired at Engage Medical and led to the eventual civil settlement:
“The company did discover one employee who was responsible for a series of unintentional errors in the use of billing codes several years ago. That was a regrettable mistake but not an intentional effort to violate billing regulations. Since that employee left the company approximately three years ago, none of the company’s medical billing has been questioned by the government and employees have completed a course of comprehensive training”.