– CHICAGO
An Indian-American physician whose medical license was suspended after he was arrested earlier this year pleaded guilty Sept. 4, to health care fraud and illegally prescribing controlled substances. Sathish Narayanappa Babu, 47, a resident of suburban Bollingbrook, faces steep punishment, including losing his luxury cars, and fines way above his ill-gotten gains going by a release from the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. But the plea agreement may help cut his prison sentence in half according to a release from the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.
Babu, who owned Anik Life Sciences Medical Corp., a home-visiting physician’s company, admitted that he illegally prescribed oxycodone and other controlled substances, and fraudulently billed Medicare some half a million dollars. But he pocketed less than half of that, or around $216,000, for services he did not provide.
But he faces maximum fines of $250,000 on each of his counts of health care fraud and handing out illegal prescriptions.
Under his plea agreement Babu also agreed to forfeit approximately $126,000 that was seized when he was arrested, as well as three automobiles ― a 2013 BMW, a 2001 BMW, and a 2010 Lexus.
He was arrested in February after an investigation and following a sting operation where an undercover agent posed as a patient and received several prescriptions for oxycodone, hydrocodone, and alprazolam from Babu between November 2012 and December 2013. He also permitted unlicensed employees to hand out such controlled substances to the undercover agent, who according to court documents, posed as a healthy individual covered by Medicare and seeking Babu’s help to get prescription medication, claiming to be suffering shoulder pain from a previous injury.
The home care employees, none of whom were licensed professionals, visited the undercover agent’s purported home around 10 times, the release said. Babu also treated other patients and submitted claims to Medicare without regard for whether those services were needed.
As part of his plea agreement, Babu agreed to surrender his DEA registration. While he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison on one count of health care fraud and four years in prison on one count of illegally prescribing a controlled substance, the government anticipates the ultimate sentence will be around 57 months to 71 months (5 to 6 years approximately), the release said.
Babu remains free on bond but cannot write any prescriptions or submit any claims to Medicare. He is to be sentenced Jan. 21, by U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp, Jr.