MICHIGAN
A federal judge today sentenced a Detroit area hematologist-oncologist to 45 years in prison for giving his patients medically unnecessary infusions or injections of chemotherapy to 553 patients, according to officials.
The $34 million in fraudulent claims were submitted to Medicare and private insurance companies, officials said.
Dr Farid Fata, 50, of Oakland Township, Michigan, plead guilty in September 2014 to 13 counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to pay or receive kickbacks and two counts of money laundering.
U.S. District Judge Paul D. Borman sentenced Fata and ordered him to forfeit $17.6 million.
Officials said Fata was a licensed medical doctor who owned and operated a cancer treatment clinic, Michigan Hematology Oncology P.C.
Fata also owned a diagnostic testing facility, United Diagnostics PLLC, located in Rochester Hills, Michigan.
“Rather than use his medical degree to save lives, Dr. Fata instead destroyed them in pursuit of profit,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell. “Time and again, Dr. Fata callously violated his patients’ trust as he used false cancer diagnoses and unwarranted and dangerous treatments as tools to steal millions of dollars from Medicare, even stooping to profit from the last days of some patients’ lives. While no sentence can restore what was taken from his patients and their families, the sentence imposed ensures that never again will Dr. Fata lay hands on another patient.”
As part of his guilty plea, Fata admitted to giving unnecessary, aggressive chemotherapy, cancer treatments, intravenous iron and other infusion therapies to patients in order to increase his billings to Medicare and other insurance companies, officials said.
Fata then submitted fraudulent claims to Medicare and other insurers for these unnecessary treatments.
Fata also admitted to soliciting kickbacks from Guardian Angel Hospice and Guardian Angel Home Health Care in exchange for his referral of patients to those facilities, according to authorities.
In addition, Fata admitted to using the proceeds of the health care fraud at his medical practice to promote the carrying on of additional health care fraud at United Diagnostics, where he administered unnecessary and expensive positron emission tomography (PET) scans for which he billed a private insurer, according to officials.