Vasso Godiali, a vascular surgeon from Bay City, Michigan, was sentenced on May 3 to 80 months in prison for orchestrating a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud health care programs by submitting claims for the placement of vascular stents and for thrombectomies that he did not perform and was ordered to pay $19.5 million in restitution collectively to Medicare, Medicaid, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM). Additionally, Godiali agreed to pay the United States up to $43,419,000 to resolve related civil allegations that his fraudulent billings to federal health care programs violated the False Claims Act (FCA).
According to a plea agreement that Godiali entered on Feb. 8, 2022, Godiali began to knowingly defraud medical insurers, including Medicare and Medicaid, in approximately 2009. Godiali billed for the placement of multiple vascular stents in the same blood vessel and prepared medical records purporting to document the medical necessity justifying that billing. In fact, however, Godiali did not place those stents and admitted to billing for services never rendered while preparing materially inaccurate medical records to justify the fraudulent billings.
Godiali also billed for arterial thrombectomies and created medical records that stated he encountered occluded arteries that would justify the performance of the procedures. However, he admitted that he often encountered no such occlusions, performed no such thrombectomies, and thus billed insurers for...
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