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Pelham Manor resident Manishkumar Patel, age 44, was arrested on Tuesday morning, Oct. 31 in connection with a healthcare fraud and kickback scheme involving the sale of fake prescriptions, the US Attorney's Office for Southern District of New York announced.
According to federal officials, between 2019 and 2022, Patel and a co-conspirator would fraudulently sell the prescriptions and doctor's orders for medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, and laboratory tests to durable medical equipment suppliers, pharmacies, and laboratories.
Patel would allegedly obtain these fraudulent prescriptions and doctor's orders from call centers that would contact Medicare beneficiaries and ask them questions designed to justify their reimbursements from Medicare.
Patel would then turn the information from these calls into prescriptions and doctor's orders by arranging telemedicine appointments with beneficiaries; sending the information to a doctor who would sign off on them without seeing a patient and were often unaware of what they were signing; and obtaining forged documents, officials said.
After obtaining the false prescriptions and doctor's orders, Patel would allegedly sell them to Medicare providers, who filled the orders and then billed Medicare for them.
Because the orders were fraudulently obtained, many beneficiaries later rejected the items they were sent by providers. Additionally, many doctors threatened to report Patel for fraud, and Medicare often refused to pay for the false orders, according to officials.
Patel is now charged with:
- Conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and wire fraud, which carries a maximum prison term of 20 years;
- Healthcare fraud, which also carries a maximum prison term of 20 years;
- Wire fraud, which also carries a maximum prison term of 20 years;
- Conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback statute, which carries a maximum prison term of five years;
- Violation of the Anti-Kickback statute, which also carries a maximum prison term of five years.
"Today’s charges send a message: our Office and our law enforcement partners are dedicated to holding accountable anyone who tries to rip off critical healthcare programs like Medicare," said US Attorney Damian Williams.
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