A guilty plea has been filed in a hospice fraud scheme that allegedly bilked Medicare for $17 million in false claims.
Petros Fichidzhyan pleaded guilty to charges of health care fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering in connection with the Medicare fraud case involving multiple California-based hospice and home health companies.
Fichidzhyan was among the five individuals that the FBI arrested in June 2024 in connection with the hospice fraud and money laundering scheme. Fichidzhyan, Juan Carlos Esparza and Karpis Srapyan allegedly owned and operated a series of hospice companies that they falsely claimed were owned by “foreign nationals,” according to the U.S. Justice Department.
“In submitting the false claims, Fichidzhyan and his co-schemers also misappropriated the identifying information of doctors, claiming to Medicare that the doctors had determined hospice services were necessary, when in fact the purported recipients of these hospice services were not terminally ill and had never requested nor received care from the sham hospices,” the Justice Department said in a recent statement.
Fichidzhyan, along with co-conspirators, allegedly impersonated the identities of foreign nationals to use as the purported owners of the hospice businesses, the Justice Department indicated. The individuals are accused of using false identities to open bank accounts and sign property leases, as well as submitting false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for hospice services that were not medically necessary and not provided to patients.
The Justice Department has accused the five individuals of spending the money on real estate, vehicles and other goods and services.
As a result of the scheme, Medicare paid the sham hospices nearly $16 million, according to the Justice Department. Fichidzhyan claimed to have received nearly $7 million of the fraudulent dollars including more than $5.3 million in transfers to his personal and business bank accounts. The funds were allegedly laundered through a dozen shell and third-party bank accounts.
Additionally, Fichidzhyan admitted to wrongfully obtaining more than $1 million through fraudulent claims made using an unnamed physician’s Medicare license, funneling these funds into his home health care agency. He allegedly attempted to cover up by paying the physician $11,000.
Fichidzhyan is scheduled to receive sentencing on April 14, 2025. He faces a minimum penalty of two years in prison for the aggravated identity theft charge, a maximum 10-year prison sentence on the health care fraud charge, and a maximum of 20 years in prison for the money laundering charge.
The FBI and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) are investigating the case.
California is among the states that have been rife with hospice fraud in recent years, joined by Arizona, Texas and Nevada. These states have seen swarms of new hospices emerging in recent years and receiving federal payments. Multiple reports of unethical or illegal practices have surfaced, particularly among these new companies.
In some cases, multiple hospices have been found operating out of the same address without a corresponding increase in patient populations. In other instances, patients who were not eligible for hospice were enrolled without their knowledge or consent, while other cases have occurred in which hospice patients did not receive care for billed services.
“Today’s guilty plea is the most recent conviction in the Justice Department’s ongoing effort to combat hospice fraud in the greater Los Angeles area,” the department stated in the announcement.
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FBI, Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS)