Kirtish Patel, Nita Patel operated Biosound Medical Services and Heart Solution PC.
AB Wire
An Indian American couple in Rockaway, New Jersey, Kirtish Patel and Nita Patel, have been ordered to pay $7.75 million ahead of their sentencing in a health care fraud case.
For years, Kirtish and Nita Patel operated Biosound Medical Services and Heart Solution PC of Parsippany, providing analyses of tests on individuals’ vital organs and body parts, reported NJ Advance Media.
But until an employee blew the whistle on the Rockaway couple, the doctors and patients who trusted their health records to the Patels did not know that those tests weren’t being read by licensed, trained physicians.
They were “read” by Kirtish Patel, who does not have a medical license, and both Patels forged doctors’ signatures on the records to cover up their crimes, court records show.
The Patels, who pleaded guilty to health care fraud charges last year, are awaiting sentencing in the case, but that didn’t stop federal prosecutors from seeking summary judgment on two False Claims Act counts filed in November, reported NJ Advance Media.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Stanley Chesler agreed with the government, and ordered the couple to pay the United States $5 million for billing Medicare and Medicaid for the tests and $2.75 million in civil penalties for a total of $7.75 million.
Since it is a whistleblower case, the unnamed former Biosound employee who alerted the government to the Patels’ scheme will receive 15 percent to 25 percent of the penalties, according to the office of U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman.
In agreeing with prosecutors, Chesler rejected statements that some physicians read some of the tests from 2008 through 2014. In pleading guilty, however, neither defendant said anything about having some tests read by physicians, so Chesler disregarded Kirtish Patel’s “self-serving” post-plea statements.
In addition, the judge also rejected the Patels’ claim that the tests had some “value” because they completed technical components of the tests.
Finally, Chesler said there was no legal basis for the Patels to claim that they shouldn’t be required to reimburse funds they received from Medicare that they subsequently paid in taxes back to the federal government.
The Patels are scheduled to be sentenced August 16, Fishman’s office said, the report said.