WASHINGTON—The mastermind of a $29.1 million Medicare fraud scheme involving approximately 30 purported medical clinics pleaded guilty today in Detroit for his role in the scheme.
The guilty plea was announced by Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Barbara L. McQuade; Special Agent in Charge Robert D. Foley III of the FBI’s Detroit Field Office; Special Agent in Charge Lamont Pugh III of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), Chicago Regional Office; and Special Agent in Charge Erick Martinez of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Detroit Field Office.
Sachin Sharma, 37, of Detroit, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Denise P. Hood in the Eastern District of Michigan to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and one count of tax evasion.
According to court documents, Sharma oversaw and directed operations of a broad network of home health, psychotherapy, and other purported medical clinics in and around Detroit, including Reliance Home Care LLC, First Choice Home Health Care Services, Inc., and Haven Adult Day Care Center LLC. Working with co-conspirators, Sharma created and/or operated these companies for the purpose of billing Medicare for home health and psychotherapy services that Sharma knew were not provided. Court documents show that Sharma paid kickbacks to patient recruiters in order to obtain the information of Medicare beneficiaries, which he then used at these companies to bill Medicare for services that were not medically necessary and/or were not provided to these beneficiaries.
Court documents show that Sharma trained others on techniques to defraud Medicare and to conceal the fraud and directed employees to fabricate and alter medical documents to give the false impression that home health and psychotherapy services were provided when, in fact, they were not.
Read rest of story here
