Sam Sarkis Solakyan, Health Care Fraud, California 2023

San Diego, California – In a shocking turn of events, Sam Sarkis Solakyan, 40, of Glendale, was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison for running a $250 million health care fraud scheme through the California Workers’ Compensation System.

The scheme involved bribes and kickbacks to physicians and others in exchange for referrals of workers’ compensation patients to Solakyan’s medical imaging companies.

Solakyan, the CEO of several medical-imaging companies, including Vital Imaging Inc. and San Diego MRI Institute, operated diagnostic imaging facilities throughout California, including the Bay Area, Los Angeles and Orange counties, and San Diego.

From mid-2013 to November 2016, Solakyan conspired with physicians and others to perpetrate a scheme in which physicians were paid bribes and kickbacks in exchange for the referral of workers’ compensation patients.

The compensation offered to the corrupt doctors consisted of either cash or referrals of new patients in what is known as a ‘cross-referral’ scheme.

Prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum, ‘Solakyan paid some $9 million in kickbacks in order to generate over $250 million in fraudulent medical billings, the vast majority of which were for MRIs that were totally medically unnecessary.’

Solakyan’s recruiters required physicians to refer a minimum number of patients to receive ‘cross-referrals,’ and those referrals stopped if the physicians failed to meet the minimum quota.

Solakyan paid more than $8.6 million in kickbacks disguised largely as sham ‘scheduling’ fees in exchange for MRI referrals, payments which were concealed from patients and health insurers.

In total, Solakyan submitted and caused to be submitted more than $250 million in claims for medical services procured through the payment of bribes and kickbacks.

Solakyan was ordered to pay $27,937,175 in restitution to the victim insurers and was banned from working in the health care and workers compensation industries for his three-year term of supervised release once he completes his prison sentence.

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