Khanna runs medical practices in East Orange and Verona.
AB Wire
NEW YORK: An Indian American physician from Livingston, New Jersey, Dr. Yash Khanna has been sentenced to 9 months in jail for taking kickbacks for diagnostic testing referrals of his patients and failing to file tax returns on $1 million of income over a three-year period.
Khanna was also sentenced to one month of severe house arrest and three years of supervised release. He was also fined $30,000 and ordered to forfeit $10,400.
Khanna, a family physician, is also the owner and operator of Family Medicine & Pediatrics, LLC, in East Orange, and West Essex Medical Group, PA, in Verona.
Khanna was originally arrested on a complaint in December 2011 and indicted in May 2012 on one count of violating the Anti-Kickback Statute in relation to a two-year scheme to receive cash kickbacks in exchange for his diagnostic testing referrals to Orange, N.J.-based Orange Community MRI. A charge of failing to file tax returns for approximately $1 million in income – including the kickback income – from 2008 through 2010, was added later.
From at least as early as 2009 through December 2011, Khanna conspired with Orange MRI to solicit and receive cash kickbacks from the facility in return for referring patients for diagnostic tests such as MRIs and CAT scans. Khanna and Orange MRI representatives negotiated the value of kickbacks that Orange MRI would pay him per test he referred, and they were paid for a period of at least three years.
Specifically, Khanna and Orange MRI’s executive director agreed Khanna would be paid $50 for every MRI referral of a Medicare or Medicaid patient and $75 for every MRI referral of a patient with private health insurance.
Khanna also failed to file federal tax returns for 2008, 2009, and 2010, even though he earned considerable income – including illegal income – during that time period: approximately $381,000 in 2008, $400,000 in 2009 and $214,000 in 2010.