Medicare fraud: Jail time for doctor, equipment provider
Medicare scheme was to submit some $775,000 in bogus claims.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder discuss the importance of preventing health-care fraud at the first National Summit on Health Care Fraud, Jan. 28, 2010 in Bethesda, Md. In a Medicare fraud case Friday, a Louisiana doctor and medical-equipment provider were sentenced to prison for their role in a scheme to defraud Medicare of some $775,000.
Jose Luis Magana/AP Images for Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services/File
BATON ROUGE, La.
A Louisiana doctor and the owner of a medical equipment company have been sentenced to prison terms for their roles in a scheme to submit around $775,000 in fraudulent Medicareclaims.
Federal prosecutors said most of the bogus claims submitted by Dr. Dahlia Kirkpatrick and Emmanuel Komandu, owner of Alpha Medical Solutions Inc. in Baker, involved unnecessary prescriptions for medical equipment, including power wheelchairs and feeding nutrients.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson in Baton Rouge sentenced Kirkpatrick to 30 months in prison and sentenced Komandu to four years in prison. The judge also ordered them to pay more than $302,000 in restitution.
They pleaded guilty in October to conspiring to commit health care fraud.