SACRAMENTO, Calif. — United States Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced today that Minas Kochumian M.D., a physician previously practicing in the Los Angeles area, has paid $9,486,287 to resolve allegations that he submitted false claims to Medicare and Medi-Cal for procedures and tests that were never performed. These payments include nearly $5.5 million paid by Kochumian as criminal restitution following his guilty plea to one count of health care fraud, in a separate criminal case filed in the Central District of California.
The civil settlement resolves contentions by the United States and the State of California that Kochumian, over a period of more than six years ending in April 2018, submitted claims to Medicare and Medi-Cal for procedures, services, and tests that were never conducted or administered to patients, including injections of medication designed to treat osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, drainage of tailbone cysts, and the removal and destruction of various growths. As part of the settlement agreement announced today, Kochumian admitted that he intentionally submitted false claims for payment with the intent to deceive the United States and California. In doing so, Kochumian violated both the federal False Claims Act and the California False Claims Act. Those statutes allow the government to recover damages and penalties for the presentation of false claims for payment to the United States and the State of California, respectively.
The civil settlement...
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