a man wearing a suit with his wrists handcuffed in the back
Rehman Mirza, 43, a chiropractor who practiced in Suitland, Md., was sentenced Feb. 16 to seven months in prison and an additional six months in home confinement after earlier pleading guilty to obstructing a criminal health care fraud investigation.
Authorities said that Mirza, of Woodbridge, Va., pled guilty in May 2015 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The underlying fraud involved D.C. Medicaid payments for home care services to be performed by personal care aides, working for home care agencies.
D.C. Medicaid only reimburses for home care services if a physician determines after a physical examination that the beneficiary has functional limitations impairing activities of daily living. The prescriptions, also known as “intakes,” dictate the frequency and duration of the services to be provided. The prescriptions are translated later into plans of care, which also must be signed by the physician.
While Mirza is licensed as a chiropractor in Maryland and Virginia, he is not licensed as a chiropractor in the District of Columbia, and is not licensed as a physician.
He worked at Capital Health LLC, d/b/a Capitol Health Chiropractic in Suitland, Md. He was not authorized to prescribe personal care services, and he was not enrolled as a provider in D.C. Medicaid.
According to a statement of offense, signed by the government as well as the defendant, Mirza and others carried out a scheme to defraud the D.C. Medicaid program from approximately November 2012 through at least June 2013.
Personal care aides, working for at least seven home care agencies, brought hundreds of D.C. Medicaid beneficiaries to Mirza, and after brief examinations, Mirza wrote prescriptions and plans of care, listing himself and signing as the “ordering physician” even though he was not a physician and was not legally or medically qualified and could not determine whether the services were medically necessary.
Ketanji Brown Jackson, who sentenced Mirza, found the latter’s conduct “egregious” and held that he had “abused a position of public trust.”
When Mirza was approached by the FBI in his office and questioned about his role, he denied he had any involvement with Medicaid. After the agents served Mirza with a subpoena for his patient files and other documents, the agents told Mirza they planned to interview his office assistant. After the agents left, Mirza offered to drive his assistant home.
During that car ride, Mirza attempted to obstruct the government’s investigation, by attempting to influence his 22-year-old assistant’s statements to the FBI, telling the assistant not to use certain words, encouraging and suggesting that she not be fully truthful, and ensuring that their stories would match so that Mirza would not be “implicated” by his assistant.
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