Five physicians are among 15 defendants charged in a Los Angeles healthcare fraud takedown involving $2 billion in alleged fraudulent claims, according to an Oct. 22 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
Most of that total comes from a $1.6 billion substance abuse treatment scheme that DOJ calls the largest of its kind it has ever prosecuted. The physicians’ cases make up a smaller share.
Harold Tabaie, MD, an Anaheim-based cardiothoracic surgeon, and his business partner, chiropractor Hany Malek are charged with billing Medicare $135 million for medically unnecessary atherectomies at two Los Angeles clinics they co-owned. Mr. Malek allegedly posed as a physician to diagnose patients with arterial disease, and Dr. Tabaie then performed the procedures on patients who didn’t have it, including repeat procedures that left some in extreme pain. The pair allegedly billed some procedures under other providers’ names to hide Dr. Tabaie’s volume, which data analytics flagged as an extreme outlier nationally.
Richard Keech, MD, of Torrance, a medical director for at least two hospices, is charged with signing false certificates of terminal illness for Medicare beneficiaries who weren’t terminally ill and in some cases didn’t know they had been placed on hospice, causing more than $10 million in false claims. Hassan Badday, MD, of Los Angeles, and Robby Ayoub, MD, of Huntington Beach, are charged in separate indictments with taking per-patient kickbacks from a marketer for Houston-based lab ApolloMDx in exchange for signing genetic testing orders. Dr. Badday’s orders allegedly led to more than $4.2 million in claims, and Dr. Ayoub’s to more than $1.3 million. Dejun Wang, MD, of Walnut, is charged with selling drug samples, including Ozempic, Mounjaro and Rybelsus, to pharmacy owners who repackaged and dispensed them.
The charges are allegations, and all defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
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