Brighton Beach

Brooklyn clinic employee gets 8 years for part in $77M Medicare fraud scheme

July 31, 2013 From U.S. Department of Justice
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Yuri Khandrius, 50, of Brooklyn, was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in prison for his role in a $77 million Medicare fraud scheme. 

In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon of the Eastern District of New York sentenced Khandrius to three years of supervised release, with a concurrent exclusion from Medicare, Medicaid and all federal health programs; ordered him to forfeit $446,655; and ordered him to pay restitution in the amount of $10,000,000.  Khandrius’s surrender date is Sept. 16.

Khandrius pleaded guilty on December 3, 2012 to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, one count of health care fraud and one count of conspiracy to pay kickbacks.  Thirteen individuals, including Khandrius, were convicted in this case, either through guilty plea or trial conviction.

According to court documents, from 2005 to 2010, Khandrius was an employee of a clinic in Brooklyn that operated under three corporate names: Bay Medical Care PC, SVS Wellcare Medical PLLC and SZS Medical Care PLLC (Bay Medical Clinic).  

The owners, operators and employees of the Bay Medical clinic paid cash kickbacks to Medicare beneficiaries and used the beneficiaries’ names to bill Medicare for more than $77 million in services that were medically unnecessary or never provided.  They billed Medicare for a wide variety of fraudulent medical services and procedures, including physician office visits, physical therapy and diagnostic tests.

According to testimony at the trail, Khandrius, who holds no medical licenses or certifications, often impersonated his co-defendant, Dr. Gustave Drivas, at the clinic.  

Dr. Drivas was the Bay Medical clinic’s “no-show” doctor.  Khandrius admitted at his change of plea hearing that he signed prescriptions and medical charts in Drivas’s name and performed medical tests and procedures on patients, even though he was not licensed to do so.  

Khandrius and other used Dr. Drivas’s Medicare billing number to bill more than $20 million in false claims. Drivas was convicted of health care fraud conspiracy and health care fraud.

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