Memphis-based physician Sanjeev Kumar has been convicted for 40 criminal counts on healthcare fraud and improper reuse of medical devices, according to a Jan. 8 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee.
What happened?
- From 2019 to 2024, Dr. Kumar, who operated Poplar Avenue Clinic, submitted and directed staff to submit false claims to Medicare and Medicaid for hysteroscopy with biopsy procedures that were not medically necessary and were performed with adulterated or mislabeled instruments.
- During that period, Dr. Kumar and advanced practitioners at the clinic performed over 15,000 hysteroscopies with biopsy on 5,559 Medicare and Medicaid patients. Although the procedures used FDA-cleared single-use and reusable hysteroscopes and graspers, Dr. Kumar failed to follow required reprocessing protocols or properly label devices. In some cases, single-use tools purchased in 2019 were still in use in 2024.
- He allegedly billed more than $41 million for the procedures and collected more than $4.8 million from Medicare and Medicaid. Records showed he purchased fewer than 200 new single-use hysteroscopes during the five-year span.
- Dr. Kumar was found guilty of 18 counts of adulteration of medical devices, 16 counts of misbranding medical devices and six counts of healthcare fraud.
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