Missouri Doctor Sentenced to Prison for Healthcare Fraud
Ordered to Repay $235,000
ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber sentenced on Thursday a doctor from Town and Country, Missouri, to a year in prison for a health care fraud scheme and ordered him and his wife to repay $235,977.
On over 1,000 occasions spanning nearly a decade, Dr. Abdul Naushad, 58, and Wajiha Naushad, 47, had their unwitting patients injected with cheaper, foreign Orthovisc that had not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Assistant U.S. Attorney Derek Wiseman said in court. The Naushads betrayed the trust of elderly and impoverished patients to fund a lavish lifestyle that included a $2 million mansion, two vacation houses and four luxury cars, Wiseman said.
FDA-approved Orthovisc, which is sold by authorized distributors in the United States, comes in a pre-filled syringe. It is injected into the knee to relieve osteoarthritis pain and is available only by prescription.
The Naushads concealed their actions from patients, employees and publicly-funded health insurance programs by, among other things, stonewalling questions from their chief of purchasing. After a shipment of foreign, unapproved injections was seized by the FDA, the Naushads had the next shipment sent to their home.
Wajiha Naushad lied to her compliance officer and friend by telling her the injections came from a distributor in the U.S., and fraudulently persuaded the compliance officer that the Orthovisc had a required National Drug Code number.
A jury in April convicted the couple of one conspiracy count and one count of health care fraud. Wajiha Naushad was sentenced Thursday to three years of probation.
The Drug Enforcement Administration assisted the Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Missouri Medicaid Fraud Control Unit to investigate the case.
