SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — Paramjit Singh Ajrawat, an Indian-American physician from Maryland, has been sentenced to serve nine years in prison and ordered to pay back more than $3 million for a healthcare fraud scheme he orchestrated.
U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow sentenced Ajrawat to the 111-month prison term last week, to be followed by three years of supervised release. Ajrawat had been charged with two counts of making a false statement related to a health care program, one count of obstruction of justice, four counts of wire fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft related to a health care fraud scheme.
The charges stemmed from incidents which occurred at a pain clinic that Ajrawat owned and operated alongside his wife.
“This lengthy sentence sends a powerful message that doctors who defraud health insurance programs will be held accountable,” said U.S. attorney Rod J. Rosenstein.
Ajrawat was a licensed physician in Maryland who specialized in interventional pain management. The Washington Pain Management Center, was operated by he and his wife, Sukhveen Kaur Ajrawat, who is also a doctor. The two were convicted by a federal jury in Sept. 2015, however, the government opted to drop the charges against Sukhveen after her death in February.
The couple defrauded federal health benefit programs including Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, according to evidence presented at the trial. They filed claims for procedures which were never performed, and performed less-expensive procedures, but falsely billed for procedures that provided higher reimbursement amounts, the evidence suggested. Additionally, the Ajrawats submitted claims stating they had met the requirements for reimbursement, when they had in fact not met those requirements.
