Docs’ $125M med flimflam
Bust 10 locals in nat’l Medicare fraud
TEN BROOKLYN and Queens doctors and health-care providers are charged with fleecing Medicare and Medicaid out of more than $125 million as part of nationwide scams that bilked the federal government out of a whopping $1.3 billion, prosecutors said Thursday.
The defendants nabbed in the four federal cases in Brooklyn are among 412 people charged in cases linked to the billion-dollar phony health-care billings. The fraud constitutes the biggest crackdown of its kind, according to authorities.
Those arrested include 120 people accused of improperly prescribing opioids and other dangerous drugs.
None of the opioid-linked defendants is tied to the Brooklyn prosecutions. But the defendants charged in New York “took advantage of programs designed to provide essential health care for the elderly and the needy,” acting Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Bridget Rohde said.
Physical therapist Wael Bakry, Dr. Abraham Demoz, chiropractor Alexander Khavash and occupational therapists Victor Genkin and Mayura Kanekar are all suspected of paying kickbacks to win patients.
The patients were treated and the services were paid, all or in part, with Medicare or Medicaid funds, court papers said. Prosecutors said one of the places where Demoz worked was Sunshine Medical P.C. in Carnasie.
“We are shocked,” Dr. Sebhatu Gebrezgi, another doctor and part owner of the practice, told the Daily News on Thursday. Gebrezgi is not charged in the case.
Queens cardiologist Dr. Ghanshyam Bhambhani is being charged in a separate case. Prosecutors said the heart specialist broke anti-kickback rules by paying other physicians for referrals.
Bhambhani, 52, was arraigned Thursday afternoon in Brooklyn federal court, where he was expected to be released on $1 million bond. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted. A lawyer for Bhambhani could not be reached for comment.
Other defendants, most of whom have already been arraigned in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, face sentences that could top out over 20 years.
Doctors and medical professionals looking to bilk Medicaid and Medicare are “on notice that they will be investigated and prosecuted,” Rohde said.
“Too many trusted medical professionals like doctors, nurses and pharmacists have chosen to violate their oaths and put greed ahead of their patients,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said of the crackdown.
A lawyer for Demoz, 57, could not be reached for comment.