Indian-American physician receives prison sentence for accepting bribes

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, N.J. (Diya TV) — Dr. Paresh Patel, an Indian-American internal medicine physician, was sentenced Wednesday to serve one year in prison for accepting bribes in exchange for patient referrals to a mobile diagnostic company.

Patel, 55, pleaded guilty to the charges of violating the anti-kickback statute before U.S. District Judge Mary L. Cooper.

According to charging documents, Patel accepted more than $174,000 in bribes from a period that extended from Sept. 2009 through Dec. 2013. The patients referrals were provided to Biosound Medical Services, a company operated by Nita K. Patel and Kirtish N. Patel, who have no relation to Paresh.

As part of the bribes, Biosound Medical Services paid Patel’s property tax obligations and home renovation expenses, according to the Justice Department. In addition to his prison sentence, Patel has been ordered to pay a $6,000 fine and to forfeit the money he received from the bribes.

Nita and Kirtish Patel both pleaded to healthcare fraud and forging physician signatures on diagnostic reports that had never been reviewed by a specialist in 2015. Those documents had actually been authored by Kirtish, who does not possess a medical license.