U.S. Settles DME Fraud Claims for $1M Against Physician

WILMINGTON, Delaware—Dr. Vishal Patel, a Wilmington physician, has agreed to pay $1 million to resolve allegations of violating the False Claims Act by ordering medically unnecessary durable medical equipment (DME) for patients covered by Medicare and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), announced U.S. Attorney David Weiss.

Between Feb. 2018 and April 2019, Patel referred patients for more than 1,750 orthotic devices, including wrist, shoulder, knee, ankle and back braces. The U.S. alleged Patel had no medical relationship with these patients and that the referrals were based on brief reviews of the patients’ medical charts, which failed to establish any legitimate medical justification for the devices. Medicare and FEHBP paid, on average, more than $400 for each device. 

Patient files were provided to Patel by RediDoc, LLC, a purported telemedicine company whose owners pleaded guilty to participation in a $64 million health care fraud conspiracy in May 2022.

“Fraudulent telemedicine companies such as RediDoc rely on licensed health care providers to make their operations appear legitimate and avoid detection,” said Weiss. “By ordering services for patients they have never examined or treated, these providers permit fraud schemes to flourish and drain vital funds from Medicare and other government health care programs. In conjunction with our law enforcement partners, this office will continue to use all available means to identify health care providers who increase costs through unnecessary orders and hold them accountable.”

“For more than a year, Dr. Patel schemed to deceive and repeatedly lied to further his greed,” said William DelBagno, special agent in charge of the FBI Baltimore Field Office. “His blatant and unscrupulous abuse of the health care system led to an exorbitant amount of fraud. Health care fraud takes money away from legitimate patients and needs, affecting the reliability of our programs, which is why the FBI is committed to bringing fraud to light and perpetrators like Dr. Patel to justice.”