Los Angeles area Indian Dr. Kain Kumar Sentenced to Prison for Medicare Fraud
January 06, 2020 - Encino, CA Indian Doctor Kain Kumar (56) was sentenced today to two years in prison for defrauding Medicare and illegally prescribing opioid drugs.
With medical clinics in Palmdale, Rosamond, and Ridgecrest, CA Dr. Kain Kumar practiced internal medicine.
Guilty Plea
Encino, CA Indian Dr. Kain Kumar pleaded guilty April, 2019 to one count of health care fraud and one count of distribution of hydrocodone.According to the plea agreement & court filings submitted:
From February 2011 until May 2016, Kumar defrauded the Medicare health care benefit program by prescribing unnecessary home health services in exchange for the payment of illegal kickbacks to him from a La Verne-based home health agency called Star Home Health Resources, Inc. According to the indictment in this case, Medicare paid $4,398,599 to Star based on the illegal kickback-tainted referrals from Kumar.In addition to the 24-months prison term, Los Angeles area Indian Doctor Kain Kumar was ordered to pay financial penalties totaling more than $1 million, consisting of $509,365 in restitution, $494,900 in asset forfeiture, and a $72,000 fine.
In furtherance of this scheme, Kumar caused false and fraudulent claims for reimbursement to be submitted to Medicare for Medicare beneficiaries that he did not personally examine or for patients he only briefly examined. Kumar also prescribed drugs that were not medically necessary and which were paid for by the Medicare Part D program.
Additionally, Kumar admitted that between February 2013 and January 2016, Kumar – without a legitimate medical purpose – prescribed 23,826 pills of the opioid drug hydrocodone (commonly sold under the brand name Vicodin or Norco) and 38,459 pills of the muscle-relaxer carisoprodol (sold under the brand name Soma). Kumar directed his office staff – who were not medical professionals – to issue prescriptions for these drugs to patients even though Kumar had not examined the patients. Kumar directed his office staff to sign his name on prescriptions for opioid drugs and also provided his staff with pre-signed prescriptions. In one instance, although Kumar examined a patient only once on the patient’s very first visit, and thereafter he caused prescriptions to be issued to the patient for hydrocodone and carisoprodol on a monthly basis for approximately a year and a half even though Kumar did not actually see the patient for any subsequent physician examination.
California Indian doctor Kain Kumar surrendered his medical license last year.