A doctor who owns multiple urgent care centers in the St. Louis, Missouri area was arrested Thursday on an indictment accusing him and his office manager of committing healthcare fraud. Dr. Sonny Saggar, 55, and Renita Barringer, 50, were each indicted Wednesday on one count of conspiracy and eight counts of making false statements related to a healthcare matter. They were arrested, appeared in court and pleaded not guilty to the charges Thursday. The indictment says Dr. Saggar has owned and operated healthcare-related businesses, including Downtown Urgent Care LLC, Creve Coeur Urgent Care LLC, and, since about September 2017, St. Louis General Hospital (SLGH). SLGH is an urgent care and primary care clinic with two locations. Barringer was the office manager of SLGH and was later added to the board of directors.
The indictment says Dr. Saggar, Barringer and others conspired to make false statements to Medicare and Medicaid by billing for services performed by multiple assistant physicians (APs) as if Dr. Saggar had provided those services, even if he was out of town or abroad. Dr. Saggar and Barringer recruited physicians to sign up to supervise the APs, falsely telling them that they merely needed to sign blank, undated CPA Verification Forms to fulfill their roles, the indictment says. In January of 2022, Dr. Saggar hired a co-conspirator who had been indicted in another case to be the sole collaborating physician at the Creve Coeur location but did not disclose to Medicaid that the co-conspirator was performing services there, the indictment says.
