A Warren, Mich. man has been sentenced to 81 months in prison for his role in a conspiracy to defraud the federal Medicare program.
Suresh Chand has also been ordered to pay $9,769,113 in restitution, jointly with co-defendants, and to serve three years of supervised release following his prison term.
Chand pleaded guilty on Sept. 2, 2009, to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and one count of conspiracy to launder money. Between January 2003 and March 2007, he and his co-conspirators submitted claims to the Medicare program totaling more than $18 million for physical and occupational therapy services that were never provided. Medicare paid approximately $8.5 million on those claims.
Co-conspirator Jose Castro-Ramirez also submitted approximately $1.2 million in claims to the Medicare program for "home visits" supposedly provided to beneficiaries recruited into the scheme. Medicare paid approximately $780,000 on those claims. Chand admitted that he laundered the funds through a series of transactions using shell companies designed to conceal the nature, source, location, ownership and control of the tainted funds.
According to court documents, Chand owned and controlled a company operating in Warren called Continental Rehab Services, Inc. (CRS), which claimed to provide physical and occupational therapy services to Medicare beneficiaries. He later started another corporation at the same address in Warren called Pacific Management Services Inc. (PM).
Chand and his co-conspirators recruited and paid cash kickbacks and other inducements to hundreds of Medicare beneficiaries, in exchange for the beneficiaries’ Medicare numbers and signatures on documents falsely indicating that they had visited CRS or PM for the purpose of receiving physical or occupational therapy.
At sentencing, scheduled for June 29, 2010, Castro-Ramirez faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the healthcare fraud conspiracy and substantive healthcare fraud counts. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the money laundering conspiracy count.