Texas: Indian American couple convicted for fraud
May 11, 2010 22:02 IST
Dr Arun Sharma, 56, and his wife Dr Kiran Sharma, 54, of Kemah, Texas, have been convicted of conspiring to commit health care fraud. Both pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of fraud.
In their pleas before United States District Judge David Hittner, they admitted to fraudulently billing Medicare, Medicaid and various private health care providers for medical procedures that were not performed staring January 1998. The Sharmas owned and operated multiple medical clinics under the name Allergy, Asthma, Arthritis Pain Center, located in Baytown and Webster, Texas.
Both voluntarily forfeited tens of millions of dollars in assets previously seized--their home in Kemah, numerous units of real estate, more than $ 700,000 in cash found during a search of their home, more than $ 800,000 found during a search of their two safe deposit boxes, and a number of investment accounts powered by the proceeds from the fraudulent activity. Altogether, the forfeited material is expected to be equivalent to $31 million.
After the defendants pleaded guilty, Judge Hittner took them into custody pending sentencing on July 27. As per the terms of her plea agreement, Kiran will be sentenced to eight years in prison, while Arun faces up to 15 years. From 1998 through 2002, Kiran saw pain patients at the clinics in addition to her own allergy patients. She would sign patient procedure forms and bills, falsely indicating that she had administered one kind of injection while giving another. She would also prescribe narcotics when she saw pain management patients, the prosecution claimed.
Nearly every patient was prescribed one or more controlled substances and put on a regimen of shots every two weeks, it said, adding that patients were required to sign the progress and procedure notes in their patient chart to prove they had been at the clinic and received the shots. Arun allegedly tried to convince all patients to take the shots. He allegedly asked even those who refused and opted for a prescriptions for narcotics, instead, to sign the progress and procedure notes.
By the beginning of 2000, he was having certain patients sign blank procedure/progress notes and then using those forms to overcharge insurance companies for injection procedures on days when the patient was not in the clinic.
Kiran hired several foreign medical graduates during this time, who helped add fictitious patient examination information to the blank progress/procedure notes after her husband had added non-existent medical procedures to the blank forms. The records showed that 100 patients purportedly received injections on 708 different days during the conspiracy. 
Both voluntarily forfeited tens of millions of dollars in assets previously seized--their home in Kemah, numerous units of real estate, more than $ 700,000 in cash found during a search of their home, more than $ 800,000 found during a search of their two safe deposit boxes, and a number of investment accounts powered by the proceeds from the fraudulent activity. Altogether, the forfeited material is expected to be equivalent to $31 million.