Rezik Saqer, 66, a Houston-area physician and anesthesiologist at two registered pain clinics, Texas Pain Solutions and Integra Medical Clinic, was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in fraudulently billing healthcare programs for at least $5 million dollars in medical tests and procedures, and for the role his fraud played in multiple patient deaths. He was also ordered to pay $5 million in restitution. According to the evidence presented at sentencing, Saqer’s healthcare fraud scheme involved luring vulnerable patients to his clinics by prescribing powerful opioid narcotics, and then requiring the patients to submit to unnecessary and dangerous procedures and tests, which were often performed by Saqer’s unlicensed staff and fraudulently billed to healthcare providers. Saqer’s scheme contributed to multiple overdose deaths, as well as the death of a young family in an auto accident involving one of Saqer’s patients, according to the evidence.
