| News News Archive  Email A Friend
April 15, 2024
Colorado Worker Shows Head Injury Happened as a Consequence of a Knock on the Head at Work April 4, 2024
Callfornia Division of Workers' Compensation Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee Meeting Scheduled for April 17, 2024 April 3, 2024
California Division of Workers' Compensation Posts Adjustments to Official Medical Fee Schedule (DMEPOS) April 2, 2024
California Division of Workers' Compensation Posts Adjustments to Official Medical Fee Schedule for Pathology and Clinical Laboratory
| | Burbank Medical Provider Knarik Vardumyan’s Scheme to Defraud Medicare Results in Sentence to 37 Months in Federal Prison
By Barry Zalma - October 16, 2017
Knarik Vardumyan, 53, of Burbank, who formerly owned and operated a medical clinic, has been sentenced by United States District Judge Dale S. Fischer, who also ordered Vardumyan to pay $1,711,789 in restitution to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Vardumyan pleaded guilty in April to two counts of federal healthcare fraud
Vardumyan, the owner-operator of a Burbank, California, medical clinic, was sentenced October 2nd 2017 to 37 months in federal prison on federal healthcare fraud charges for participating in a scheme to defraud Medicare by prescribing unnecessary services and equipment, which often were not even provided.
According to court documents, Vardumyan admitted that she knowingly and unlawfully participated in a scheme to defraud Medicare by billing Medicare for “medically unnecessary office visits and diagnostic tests,” and by arranging “for the issuance of . . . prescriptions and orders for medically unnecessary durable medical equipment” and “home health services.” Vardumyan further admitted, “many, if not all” of the people who visited her clinic “were brought . . . by co-schemers known as ‘marketers,’ who offered promises of free, medically unnecessary [equipment] or food” to those Medicare beneficiaries who were willing to attend Vardumyan’s clinic.
In documents filed in relation to the October 2, 2017 sentence, the government noted that Medicare paid $1,711,789 as a result of this fraudulent scheme, and that a 37-month term of imprisonment appropriately reflects the nature and circumstances of the offense, as well as the need for the sentence to “promote respect for the law and afford adequate deterrence against this kind of serious fraud against our healthcare system and the public fisc.”
Link to June 17, 2016 Indictment
Barry Zalma, attorney at law, is a Certified Fraud Examiner and an expert witness for insurance fraud cases. With over 40 years of experience, he is the publisher of Zalma’s Insurance Fraud Letter (ZIFL) and can be found at www.zalma.com.
Publisher and Editor Lonce Lamonte, lonce@adjustercom.com, www.adjustercom.com, has republished and edited this article with permission from Barry Zalma.
adjustercom thanks its fine sponsors: The Stockwell Firm, Michael Sullivan & Associates, Adelson Testan Brundo Novell & Jimenez, The Law Offices of Stacey Tokunaga, RJN Investigations, AN Investigations, Patrico Hermanson & Guzman, and Hefley Law for their support of adjustercom’s reporting of insurance fraud, dedicated to raising awareness through news reporting.
|
__May11th2017.gif)
.gif)