A Glendale, Calif.-based physician has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for billing Medicare more than $45 million for Botox injections that were medically unnecessary or never provided, according to the Justice Department.
Violetta Mailyan, 45, owned and operated Healthy Way Medical Center, a clinic that purported to offer beauty and cosmetic services. Medicare covers Botox to treat documented chronic migraines. Dr. Mailyan billed for thousands of injections that were never given, were purely cosmetic, or went to patients whose primary care physicians hadn’t referred them for migraine treatment. More than $19 million of the claims were for injections on days the clinic was closed, and some covered dates when she was on vacation, including more than $200,000 billed while she was in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
When she learned investigators were closing in, Dr. Mailyan falsified medical records and forged beneficiary signatures, including for a man who was in federal prison during the dates she claimed to have treated him. A jury convicted her in May of nine counts of wire fraud and three counts of obstruction. She was also ordered to pay $32,904,049.41 in restitution and to forfeit more than $16 million in property. Prosecutors said she used fraud proceeds to buy two Teslas, five California properties and a $12,000 17th-century crossbow.
The court said her actions were “almost unbelievable in their brazenness.”
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