Indian pleads guilty in $13.8 mn US healthcare fraud

An Indian physical therapy assistant in the US has pleaded guilty for his role in a $13.8 million healthcare fraud scheme and faces 10 years in prison.

Ankit Patel, 28, of Detroit pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud before US District Judge Gerald Rosen of the Eastern District of Michigan.

Patel is scheduled to be sentenced in March 2013 and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

According to court documents, beginning in June 2009 Patel received payments for falsifying medical documentation for Physicians Choice Home Health Care, a home health agency owned by his alleged co-conspirators.

Another co-conspirator instructed Patel on how to falsify medical documentation.

He also signed therapy revisit notes as a physical therapy assistant for patients he did not see or treat.

Patel admitted to knowing that the documents he falsified and the documents he signed would be used to support false claims to federal insurance programme Medicare for home health services.

According to Patel's plea agreement, he was also paid to create and sign falsified medical documentation for other Detroit-area home healthcare companies that billed Medicare for approximately a million dollars.