4 Canton Residents Face Medicare Fraud Charges

Four Canton residents are , according to a statement issued by Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the FBI and the HHS Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG).

According to court documents unsealed in U.S. District Court in Detroit, the separate schemes for home health services and psychotherapy allegedly involved a total of more than $28 million in fraudulent claims submitted to Medicare for services that were medically unnecessary and/or never provided. Law enforcement officials arrested a total of 16 people — two remain at large — searched 11 locations and seized 28 bank accounts, according to the Department of Justice statement.

The Canton residents charged include Tausif Rahman, 36; Zahir Yousafzai, 41; Rehan Khan, 38; and Hetal Barot, 28.Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division said those charged included physicians, nurses, clinic owners and other medical professionals.

“Health care providers should be aware that the days of stealing from Medicare with impunity are over,” said U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade of the Eastern District of Michigan. “We are relentlessly investigating and prosecuting those who seek to profit from false claims for services that are medically unnecessary or, in some instances, not provided at all.”

Donald M. Berwick, M.D., administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said the arrests were good news for American taxpayers and "a powerful warning to health care ripoff artists. In this instance, the system worked as it should: Medicare detected suspicious behavior and got the information quickly to law enforcement for appropriate follow-up. Together with our law enforcement partners, we helped minimize the theft of taxpayer dollars and maximize criminal consequences to thieves. CMS will continue to relentlessly pursue fraudsters across the country and aggressively feed leads to our law enforcement partners.”

According to court documents, the conspiracy was operated out of multiple home health agencies located in Livonia, Mich., including Physicians Choice Home Health Care LLC, First Care Home Health Care LLC, Quantum Home Care Inc. and Moonlite Home Care Inc.

In a separate complaint, a physician and two other individuals were charged with health care fraud and the submission of false claims in connection with an approximately $11.5 million scheme to defraud the Medicare program. The scheme allegedly involved false billings for individual and group psychotherapy services at two clinics located in Detroit, Quality Recreation and Rehabilitation Inc. and Procare Rehabilitation Inc. According to court documents, the defendants billed Medicare for services that were medically unnecessary and/or never provided.

In another indictment, the owner of a medical clinic located in Southfield was charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud, health care fraud and identity theft for a scheme allegedly involving $2.9 million in fraudulent billings to Medicare. According to court documents, the clinic owner is alleged to have used the identities of Medicare providers and beneficiaries to bill for psychotherapy services that were medically unnecessary and never performed.

The charges were announced by Assistant Attorney General Breuer of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney McQuade of the Eastern District of Michigan, Special Agent in Charge Arena of the FBI’s Detroit Field Office and Special Agent in Charge Pugh of the HHS-OIG Office of Investigation.

The cases are being prosecuted by Gejaa T. Gobena and Catherine K. Dick of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section. The investigations were conducted jointly by the FBI and U.S. Health and Human Services as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force.

Since the strike force team formed in March 2007, more than 1000 individuals in nine districts have been charged for falsely Medicare billing totaling more than $2.3 billion. In addition, HHS’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, working in conjunction with the HHS-OIG, is taking steps to increase accountability and decrease the presence of fraudulent providers.

Indictments and criminal complaints contain merely charges and defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

The following people face Medicare fraud charges in U.S. District Court in Detroit. This list is not an indication of guilt:

• Tausif Rahman, 36
• Zahir Yousafzai, 41
• Rehan Khan, 38
• Hetal Barot, 28

Bath

• Dr. Paul Kelly, 74

Bloomfield Hills

• Srinivas Reddy aka "Dr. Reddy," 35.

Detroit

• Dr. Dwight Smith, 58

Farmington Hills

• Marcus Jenkins, 49
• Elizabeth Jenkins, 47
• Javed Rehman, 48
• Janaki Chettiar, 36

Madison Heights

• Jigar Patel, 27

Southfield

• Gerald R. Funderburg Jr., 31
• Anthony Parkman, 40

Orchard, Mich.

• Dr. Alphonso Berry, 50

Wixom

• Nabeel Shaikh, 29

Ypsilanti

• Muhammad aka "Sib" Ahmad, 33
• Awad Ahmad, 41