An entrance to the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building in Washington, photographed in April 2007. Archive photo.
Photo: Gregory Varnum / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0.
A California doctor has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for a scheme that billed Medicare more than $45 million for Botox services that were unnecessary or never provided, the Justice Department announced Friday.
Violetta Mailyan, 45, of Glendale, was sentenced Thursday. She owned Healthy Way Medical Center, a clinic offering beauty and cosmetic services, according to the department’s October 30 announcement.
Medicare can reimburse Botox injections needed to treat documented chronic migraines. Prosecutors said Mailyan instead billed for thousands of injections that were not given, were cosmetic, or involved patients who had not been referred by their primary-care doctors for chronic-migraine treatment.
More than $19 million in claims concerned injections supposedly given on days when her clinic was closed. She also billed for services while vacationing away from California, the department said.
When investigators began closing in, Mailyan falsified medical records and forged patients’ signatures, according to evidence presented at trial. The records included purported treatment of a man who was in federal prison at the time.
After a six-day trial that ended in May, a jury convicted Mailyan of nine counts of wire fraud and three counts of obstructing a criminal investigation of a health care offense.
In addition to the prison term, the court ordered her to pay $32,904,049.41 in restitution to Medicare and ordered immediate forfeiture of more than $16,029,742 in seized property, securities and bank funds. Those are separate court-ordered remedies; the announcement does not establish that all restitution has been collected.
The jury also found that fraud proceeds had been used to purchase two Tesla vehicles, including a Cybertruck, and five California properties, the department said. Prosecutors said other purchases included a $12,000 antique crossbow and a $3,000 painting.
The FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General investigated the case.
JBizNews Desk | Washington
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