Indian-American physiotherapist jailed for healthcare fraud

NEW YORK: An Indian-American physiotherapist has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay over $10 million in restitution for his role in a multi-million dollar healthcare fraud and money laundering scheme.

Chiradeep Gupta, 39, of Michigan was sentenced by US district judge Denise Page Hood in the eastern district of Michigan.

In addition to the 120 months prison term, Gupta was sentenced to serve three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay more than $10 million in restitution, jointly and severally with his co-defendants, acting assistant attorney general Mythili Raman of the justice department's criminal division said in a statement on Friday.

Gupta, a physiotherapist and part-owner of a home healthcare company, was found guilty at trial in October 2012 of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and three substantive counts of money laundering.

The fraud scheme totalled almost $11 million. According to evidence presented at trial, Gupta and his co-conspirators submitted false and fraudulent claims to federal social insurance programme Medicare through a home healthcare company, which purported to provide skilled nursing and physical therapy services to Medicare beneficiaries in the greater Detroit area.

Evidence showed that Gupta and his co-conspirators used patient recruiters who paid Medicare beneficiaries to sign blank documents for physical therapy services that were never provided or were medically unnecessary.

The owners of another home healthcare company paid physicians to sign referrals and other therapy documents necessary to bill Medicare.

Physical therapists provided through contractors, including two owned by Gupta, would then create fake medical records using the blank, pre-signed forms obtained by the patient recruiters to make it appear as if physical therapy services had actually been rendered, when such services had not been rendered.

According to evidence presented at trial, Gupta also doctored and directed the doctoring of fake patient files, besides laundering the proceeds of the fraud through multiple shell companies.