On May 15, 2024, US District Judge Lance Africk sentenced Shiva Akula, age 68, of New Orleans, to 240 months of imprisonment, three years of supervised release, and $2,300 in mandatory special assessment fees, in relation to an extensive healthcare fraud scheme orchestrated by Akula. Akula owned and oversaw the day-to-day operations of Canon Healthcare, LLC, a hospice facility with offices in the New Orleans area, Baton Rouge, Covington, and Gulfport, Mississippi. At sentencing, the Court found that between January 2013 and December 2019, Canon billed Medicare approximately $84 million in fraudulent claims and was paid approximately $42 million relating to these fraudulent claims. The Court ordered that Akula repay the $42 million of fraudulent proceeds back to Medicare. On November 6, 2023, a jury convicted Akula on all 23 counts of healthcare fraud charged in the indictment relating to overbilling for hospice patients for expensive General Inpatient (“GIP”) services and for multiple counts related to manipulating Medicare billing codes, known as Common Procedural Terminology (“CPT”) codes despite such services being medically unnecessary, or despite their inclusion in the daily hospice benefit Canon already received for its patients.
