NY doctor indicted in multi-million dollar medicare fraud scheme

NEW YORK: A Pakistani doctor from New York, who was charged last month, with a fraud of $85 million and was arrested by the Federal investigation agency FBI, is now formally indicted.

According to prosecution, the defendant Syed Imran Ahmad who is from New York and who was performing weight loss surgeries in New York hospital has allegedly filed $85 million worth of medical bills to state run program of Medicaid from 2011 to 2013, out of which more than 7 million dollars was already paid to him by the Medicaid.

The state attorney general Turner Buford told the court that Syed Imran Ahmad siphoned two million dollars to Pakistan in six days while they were investigating. The FBI said that investigation started with a complain of two of his patients.

They said that it is a concern that the defendant would sell his 4 million dollar residence in Motown for which they asked for a court lien, for which the court has put a lien on this house.

According to FBI, the defendant has claimed to perform 480 surgeries, while the hospital logbook only has four patients name.

The defense attorney Douglas stated that a lot of patients are not aware that the procedure on them should be termed as surgery.

The case also has six other codefendants besides Syed Imran Ahmad, including a physician and two billing agents who filed fraudulent charges of 14.4 Million dollars, as they allegedly sent false names of senior citizens as their patients to Medicaid.

A large amount was collected against these false claims. Dr. Syed Imran Ahmad earned his medical degree from Liaqat Medical College of Hyderabad in 1990 and started practicing medicine after passing board exams in US.

The health and human services department through a press release has stated that 260 million dollars of fraudulent claims are investigated only this month and cases are registered against 90 individuals in which 27 are in medical profession and 16 are doctors. These cases are registered in courts of Florida, Texas, Michigan, New York, California, Louisiana and Illinois.