A doctor convicted of Medicare abuse has been sentenced to 13 years in prison.

Syed Imran Ahmed was convicted for submitting $25 million in false Medicare charges. In July 2016, Ahmed was convicted of health care fraud, money laundering and lying in regards to Medicare abuse.

Ahmed was given a $20,000 fine and ordered to pay restitution totaling $7.27 million. He also had to give up another $7.27 million in ill-gotten profits.

The Department of Justice explained that Ahmed had a simple scheme, one that worked until he was caught. Ahmed committed Medicare abuse by billing for wound drainage procedures that he didn’t execute. He also instructed his billing company to bill Medicare for surgeries he never performed. He would simply write a list of surgeries, send the list to his billing company, and tell the billing company to bill Medicare.

Ahmed was one of the doctors caught in the net of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which has filed charges against 2,900 healthcare workers accused of a total of $10 billion in Medicare abuse.

In an issued statement, U.S. Attorney Richard P. Donoghue said, “Dr. Syed Ahmed treated Medicare like a personal piggy bank, stealing over $7.2 million by making fraudulent claims for medical procedures he never performed. Dr. Ahmed will now pay the price for violating the trust that Medicare places in doctors.”

Dr. Ahmed was among the 90 doctors and health care professionals who were charged by the Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in May 2014. The healthcare workers committed Medicare abuse and many fraudulent activities in six U.S. cities that allowed them to rake in $260 million in false claims.

Government Continues Fight Against Medicare Abuse

The U.S. government is committed to fighting Medicare abuse. Medicare beneficiaries will receive new Medicare cards in the mail between April 2018 and April 2019. The new cards will assign a new Medicare Number unique to each citizen. In the past, the Medicare Number was each individual’s Social Security Number.

The Medicare Fraud Strike Force that caught Ahmed works as a division under the Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Established in March 2007, Strike Force teams currently operate in both Miami and Tampa, Fla.; Los Angeles, Calif.; Detroit, Mich.; Brooklyn, N.Y.; Chicago, Ill.; Dallas, Texas; southern Texas; and southern Louisiana.

The Medicare Fraud Strike Force tackles Medicare abuse by bringing together the criminal-fighting powers of the Office of Inspector General, the Department of Justice, Offices of the U.S. Attorneys, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, local law enforcement and others.

If you have information about someone committing Medicare fraud, you could benefit from speaking with an attorney about bringing a Medicare fraud whistleblower lawsuit.

The Medicare Abuse Lawsuit is U.S. v. Ahmed, Case No. 1:14-cr-00277 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.