San Diego neurosurgeon gets five years jail for accepting $3.3 million in bribes
Four Indian Americans have been convicted of fraud, kickbacks and bribery in three separate cases in Florida, New Jersey, Texas, South Carolina and California, according to US Justice Department.
Minal Patel, 44, of Atlanta was convicted by a federal jury in the Southern District of Florida on Dec 14 in a scheme to defraud Medicare by submitting over $463 million in genetic and other laboratory tests that patients did not need and that were procured through the payment of kickbacks.
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Vijesh Patel, MD and his office manager and wife Laju Patel, both of Port Neches, Texas, have agreed to pay $422,789 to settle kickback allegations involving New Jersey, Texas and South Carolina Laboratories.
Lokesh S. Tantuwaya, 55, a San Diego neurosurgeon was sentenced Dec 9 to five years in federal prison for accepting approximately $3.3 million in bribes for performing spinal surgeries at a now-defunct Long Beach hospital whose owner later was imprisoned for committing a massive workers’ compensation system scam.
In the first case, Minal Patel owned LabSolutions LLC (LabSolutions), a lab enrolled with Medicare that performed sophisticated genetic tests, according to court documents and evidence presented at trial, according to a Justice Department press release.
Patel conspired with patient brokers, telemedicine companies, and call centers to target Medicare beneficiaries with telemarketing calls falsely stating that Medicare covered expensive cancer genetic tests.
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After the Medicare beneficiaries agreed to take a test, Patel paid kickbacks and bribes to patient brokers to obtain signed doctors’ orders authorizing the tests from telemedicine companies.
From July 2016 through August 2019, LabSolutions submitted more than $463 million in claims to Medicare, including for medically unnecessary genetic tests, of which Medicare paid over $187 million. In that timeframe, Patel personally received over $21 million in Medicare proceeds.
Patel was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, three counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and to pay and receive illegal health care kickbacks, four counts of paying illegal health care kickbacks, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on March 7, 2023, and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on the first conspiracy count, 10 years on each health care fraud count, five years on the second conspiracy count, 10 years on each kickback count, and 20 years on the third conspiracy count.
In the second case, Vijesh Pate wife Laju Patel have agreed to cooperate with the Department of Justice’s investigations of, and litigation against, other participants in the alleged schemes.
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The settlement announced Dec 14 resolves allegations that Dr. and Mrs. Patel received kickbacks in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute in return for Dr. Patel’s referrals to three laboratories: Texas Laboratory, New Jersey Laboratory and South Carolina Laboratory
from December 2016 to to August 2021.
In the third case, Tantuwaya pleaded guilty on Sep 1 to one count of conspiracy to commit honest services mail and wire fraud and to receive illegal payments for health care referrals.
He has been in federal custody since May 2021 after he was found to have violated the terms of his pretrial release.
From 2010 to 2013, Tantuwaya accepted money from Michael Drobot, who owned Pacific Hospital in Long Beach, in exchange for Tantuwaya performing spinal surgeries at that hospital.
During its final five years, the scheme resulted in the submission of more than $500 million in medical bills for spine surgeries involving kickbacks.
Read: Indian-American convicted in $463 mn healthcare fraud (Decemebr 15, 2022)
Tantuwaya entered into contracts with Drobot and Drobot-owned companies. Tantuwaya knew or deliberately was ignorant that the payments were being given to him in exchange for bringing his patient surgeries to Pacific Hospital.
In total, Tantuwaya received approximately $3.3 million in illegal payments.
In April 2013, law enforcement searched Pacific Hospital, which was sold later that year, bringing the kickback scheme to an end.
To date, 23 defendants have been convicted for participating in the kickback scheme.