One physician in California has skipped town after manipulating the Medicare system to defraud the government of nearly $1.5 million.
According to a new Department of Justice (DOJ) press release, 61-year-old Medicare provider Lilit Gagikovna Baltaian of Porter Ranch, CA, has been sentenced, in absentia, to four-and-a-half years in prison for healthcare fraud.
The DOJ says the fugitive issued false certifications in Los Angeles from 2012 to 2018, costing the government $1.497 million.
“From approximately January 2012 to July 2018, she falsely certified patients to receive home health care from at least four Los Angeles area home health agencies. These certifications were used by the home health agencies to fraudulently bill Medicare.
In some instances, Baltaian pre-signed blank, undated physician certification forms knowing that the home health agencies would falsify the forms to make appear that she had seen the Medicare beneficiaries and made clinical findings to support the need for home health care, when she had done neither. Baltaian received cash payments related to these referrals and also separately billed Medicare for signing the fraudulent certifications.”
Though Baltaian pleaded guilty to a count of healthcare fraud in November of last year, the physician fraudster has since disappeared, presumably on the run from the law.
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