The Department of Justice announced Monday that a Granada Hills man pleaded guilty to engaging in a years-long scheme to defraud Medicare of more than $17 million.
The DOJ said 43-year-old Petros Fichidzhyan admitted to health care fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.
According to the report, Fichidzhyan and others operated a series of sham hospice companies, as well as Fichidzhyan’s own home health care company, to carry out the fraud.
“Fichidzhyan, along with co-schemers, impersonated the identities of foreign nationals to use as the purported owners of the hospices — including using the identities to open bank accounts and sign property leases — and submitted false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for hospice services that were not medically necessary and not provided,” said the DOJ in a release.
In the falsely submitted claims to Medicare, Fichidzhyan and his group would misappropriate the identifying information of doctors, saying they deemed hospice services necessary for patients, officials said.
However, this case revealed that the purported recipients of the claimed hospice services were not terminally ill and had never requested, nor received, care from the fake hospices.
“As a result of the scheme, Medicare paid the sham hospices nearly $16 million,” said the DOJ’s release.
Out of the $16 million, Fichidzhyan personally received nearly $7 million, including more than $5.3 million in transfers to his personal and business bank accounts, which officials said were laundered through a dozen shell and third-party bank accounts.
“Fichidzhyan additionally admitted to wrongfully obtaining more than $1 million for his home health care agency through the fraudulent use of a doctor’s name and identifying information in certifying Medicare beneficiaries for home health care, which he attempted to cover up by paying the doctor $11,000,” added the DOJ.
The Granada Hills man is scheduled for sentencing on April 14, and the DOJ said he faces a mandatory penalty of two years in prison on the aggravated identity theft charge, a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on the health care fraud charge and a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on the money laundering charge.
