Indian-American doc pays $1,850,000 for performing unnecessary tests, surgeries
Darpan News Desk IANS, 11 Jan, 2023 01:38 PM
New York, Jan 11 (IANS) An Indian-American doctor has agreed to pay approximately $1,850,000 for allegedly billing the government for cataract surgeries and diagnostic tests that were not medically required.
Aarti D. Pandya and her Pandya Practice Group violated the False Claims Act by also performing and billing for tests that were incomplete or of worthless value, and office visits that did not provide the level of service claimed.
"Physicians who perform procedures and tests without a legitimate medical need place profits ahead of patients and subject those patients to unnecessary risk," said US Attorney Ryan K Buchanan in a statement released on Monday.
"This settlement represents our office's commitment to ensuring accountability for physicians who subject patients to unwarranted medical care and waste taxpayer funds," Buchanan said.
From January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2016, Pandya knowingly submitted false claims to federal healthcare programmes for medically unnecessary cataract extraction surgeries and YAG laser capsulotomies, according to a Justice Department release.
The prosecution alleged that Pandya performed these procedures on patients that did not qualify for the procedure under accepted standards of medical practice and, in some cases, caused injury to her patients.
Additionally, it accused Pandya of falsely diagnosing patients with glaucoma to justify unnecessary diagnostic testing and treatment that was billed to Medicare.
The prosecution also said that many of the diagnostic tests that Pandya ordered were not properly performed, were performed on a broken machine, or were not interpreted in the medical record, as required by Medicare.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) imposed in 2019 a payment suspension on the Pandya Practice Group that precluded it from receiving any reimbursement from Medicare for Part B claims.
As part of the settlement of the government's claims in this case, the Pandya Practice Group agreed to forfeit the suspension amount to the government.
The payment suspension will also be lifted as part of the settlement.
To protect federal healthcare programmes and beneficiaries going forward, Pandya and the Pandya Practice Group have entered into a detailed, multi-year Integrity Agreement and Conditional Exclusion Release (IA) with the Office of Inspector General.
"We must assure patients and taxpayers that healthcare is dictated by clinical needs, not fiscal greed," said Keri Farley, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. "This settlement should serve as a reminder that the FBI will not tolerate healthcare providers who engage in schemes that defraud the industry and put innocent patients at risk."
According to the officials in the Indian mission, Vysne Nemecke is a small village on the Slovakia- Ukraine border and opposite Ukraine's Uzhhorod city. From here, the evacuated Indians are transported to the regional capital, Kosice, from where the Indian flights under 'Operation Ganga' are being operated.
The shooting came less than a week after a shooting at a Las Vegas hookah bar killed one person and wounded 13. That shooting last Saturday was described as an exchange of gunfire involving people at a private party. Police have arrested one suspect.
The meeting is set to culminate in a vote Friday on whether to set up a three-person expert panel. The vote by the 47-member-state body, which counts Ukraine and Russia as members, offers a bellwether of international sentiment about the Kremlin's invasion.
The Nasdaq fell 1.6% as technology companies led the way lower. Less risky sectors like utilities gained ground. Major indexes had rallied a day earlier after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said he favored a modest interest rate increase at the Fed’s policy meeting in two weeks.
Those targeted by the new sanctions include Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, and Alisher Burhanovich Usmanov, one of Russia’s wealthiest individuals and a close ally of Putin. The U.S. State Department also announced it was imposing visa bans on 19 Russian oligarchs and dozens of their family members and close associates.
An Indian medical student, Faisal, sent a video to IANS narrating his ordeal in the north-eastern city of Sumy in Ukraine. In the video, he said that around 500 Indian students are stuck in Sumy, which is 350 km from Kiev.
