Zahid Imran, Medicare Fraud, Louisiana 2014

A Louisiana psychiatrist, Zahid Imran, has been sentenced to serve 86 months in prison for his role in a $258.5 million Medicare fraud scheme involving partial hospitalization psychiatric services. Imran, 56, of Baton Rouge, was also ordered to pay $43.5 million in restitution and to forfeit all proceeds from the fraudulent scheme.

Imran, who served as the medical director of Shifa Community Mental Health Center of Baton Rouge, and co-owned Serenity Center of Baton Rouge and Shifa Community Mental Health Center of Texas, admitted mentally ill patients to the facilities, some of whom were inappropriate for partial hospitalization, and then re-certified the patients’ appropriateness for the program in an effort to continue to bill Medicare for services.

To support the fraudulent Medicare billing, Imran and others falsified patient treatment records to reflect services on dates when no such services were provided. Imran pleaded guilty on May 13, 2014, to conspiracy to commit health care fraud.

Law enforcement’s 2011 investigation into the three community mental health centers has resulted in 17 convictions of individuals employed by the facilities, including therapists, marketers, administrators, owners and the medical director. The companies billed Medicare for partial hospitalization program services for the mentally ill that were unnecessary or never provided over a period of approximately seven years.

The companies, collectively, submitted more than $258 million in claims to Medicare during this period. Medicare paid approximately $43.5 million on those claims.

The case is being investigated by HHS-OIG, the FBI and the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office, and was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, under the supervision of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Louisiana.

Since its inception in March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, now operating in nine cities across the country, has charged nearly 1,900 defendants who have collectively billed the Medicare program for more than $6 billion.

Related Federal Cases