Convicted cardiologist turns himself in
A Fox Chapel doctor convicted of fraud who failed to show up at his federal sentencing hearing on Wednesday turned himself in this morning to U.S. marshals and his sentencing has been rescheduled for next month.
Samirkumar Shah was supposed to be sentenced Wednesday before U.S. District Judge David Cercone but didn’t arrive for court and the judge ordered the marshals to arrest him.
Shah’s lawyer said he had suffered an illness but surrendered this morning. In a prior motion, Shah said that he had suffered an allergic reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine on July 7 and that his doctor recommended at least six weeks of bed rest. He is now in U.S. custody pending new sentencing.
Judge Cercone set a date for Aug. 5. The judge said on Wednesday that Shah will remain in custody until his sentencing, although his lawyers are likely to file a motion for his release.
Shah, a cardiologist with 11 offices in the Pittsburgh region and others in New York, Florida and Ohio, was convicted two years ago on health care fraud counts in connectionwith unnecessary angina treatments.
The doctor submitted millions in false billings to insurance for patients who underwent external counterpulsation therapy, which he touted as the “fountain of youth” for various ailments.
Prosecutors said at trial that Shah submitted some $3.5 million in false billings. They said he advertised his therapy in newspapers as a cure-all, then recruited patients who didn’t have angina to undergo the procedure by poorly trained staffers.
The outpatient treatment involved the use of specialized beds equipped with pressure cuffs that exert pressure on patients’ legs to increase blood flow to the heart. Insurance will pay for the treatment, but only for patients with disabling angina and only if a doctor is supervising the procedure.
Federal agents said Shah’s patients did not have angina and that he didn’t supervise the treatment.
Shah faces a guideline sentence of 78 to 97 months and a restitution amount of $1.2 million. Assistant U.S. attorneys Eric Olshan and Nicole Vasquez Schmitt are asking Judge Cercone for a sentence in that 78- to 97month range, arguing that Shah was motivated by money at the expense of patients in violation of his oath as a physician.
“The defendant acted out of greed and self-interest over the course of many years when he billed insurance companies more than $10 million for unnecessary and unsupervised ECP treatments that put his patients in harm’s way,” they wrote in sentencing papers.