Niranjan Mittal, a Brooklyn-based cardiologist, was charged in connection with a scheme to fabricate patient records, pay physicians for patient referrals, and bill for medically unnecessary vascular procedures. The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York also filed a civil fraud complaint under the False Claims Act against Mittal, Divanshu Bansal, who manages Mittal’s medical practice and supervises staff, and Niranjan K. Mittal, Physician, PLLC d/b/a/ Carecube, and New York Pet Imaging Center LLC, the entities that own Mittal’s practice and diagnostic testing facility. Since at least 2016, Mittal operated a medical clinic in Brooklyn, New York (the “Brooklyn Clinic”), with a patient base consisting of many individuals of limited economic means who were insured by government healthcare programs.
As a result of Mittal’s scheme, patients at the Brooklyn Clinic, many of whom were already in poor health, routinely underwent medically unnecessary vascular interventions at Mittal’s office, with some patients undergoing ten or more interventional procedures over the course of several years. The patients’ conditions often did not improve, despite these repeated interventions. Through his operating entity, Mittal billed Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers over $100 million for the relevant vascular procedures.
In addition to fraudulently billing Medicare and Medicaid for medically unnecessary peripheral vascular procedures, fabricating patient records to make it appear these procedures were justified, and paying kickbacks for patient referrals: Mittal, Bansal, and Mittal’s operating entities billed Medicare and Medicaid for medically unnecessary cardiac diagnostic imaging studies, including but not limited to PET scans, stress tests, echocardiograms, and carotid artery doppler studies. These tests were repeatedly performed on the same patients without any clinical basis and without taking into account the results of prior, duplicative tests. At the direction of Mittal and Bansal, staff prepared fabricated medical records to make it appear that patients exhibited symptoms and complaints that would justify performing these tests. The lawsuit seeks to recover treble damages and civil penalties under the False Claims Act.
