New York:
An Indian-origin physician has been indicted on charges of perpetrating a $12 million healthcare fraud scheme and faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
Utica-based physician Dilip Kachare has pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on his own recognizance after being directed to surrender his passport to US authorities.
US Attorney for the Northern District of New York Richard Hartunian said in a statement today that a New York grand jury returned an indictment last week charging Kachare with three counts of healthcare fraud and 16 counts of mail fraud.
58-year-old Kachare faces a maximum sentence of 10 years' in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on the healthcare fraud counts and a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years' imprisonment and a similar fine on the mail fraud counts.
According to the indictment, Kachare ran an outpatient and inpatient practice in internal medicine.
In addition to his office practice, he treated patients at a number of New York hospitals and nursing homes.
Between 2002 and 2012, Kachare engaged in a scheme to fraudulently obtain payments from healthcare benefit programmes, including Medicare, Medicaid and numerous private insurers.
He submitted claims for reimbursement saying he had provided a certain number of patients with the medical services daily as designated by medical codes when it would have been impossible for any physician to provide the medical treatment to that number of patients in a single day.
The approximate amount of the fraud alleged in the indictment is $12 million.
The indictment contains a forfeiture allegation which seeks a similar amount of monetary judgment against Kachare for proceeds derived by him through the fraud scheme.