A former Van Nuys physician who recently surrendered his medical license following sexual harassment accusations has agreed to a $15-million federal settlement over allegations that he and fellow defendants submitted false claims to Medicare and Medi-Cal.
The U.S. Department of Justice accused Mohammad Rasekhi, his spouse and business partner, Sheila Busheri, the medical center he founded and a laboratory he co-owned of engaging in a number of schemes to defraud Medicare and Medicaid from 2014-22, the U.S. attorney’s office said this week.
Rasekhi was the founder and chief medical officer of Southern California Medical Center, a group of general practice clinics with locations in El Monte, Van Nuys, Pico Rivera, Woodland Hills, Pomona and Long Beach. He and Busheri also co-owned Universal Diagnostic Laboratories, a medical test facility based in Van Nuys.
Busheri, who is chief executive of SCMC, said the pair deny all allegations. However, “due to the high cost of litigation and issuance of a crippling payment suspension, fighting the allegations to prove the absence of wrongdoing meant closing SCMC’s doors, effectively denying care to thousands of underserved patients,” she said in a written statement. “With that in mind, a business decision was made to resolve the matter.”
An attorney who represented Rasekhi in the surrender of his medical license didn’t immediately return requests for comment.
According to the settlement agreement, Rasekhi, Busheri and their businesses allegedly paid marketers illegal kickbacks to refer Medicare and Medi-Cal patients to SCMC’s clinics. They gave outside medical clinics illegal perks and payments so that they would refer federally supported patients to UDL for lab tests, the agreement said, and referred SCMC patients who received Medicare and Medi-Cal benefits to UDL for testing, in violation of federal laws against self-referrals.
“Kickback and self-referral schemes risk impairing the judgment of healthcare providers and diminish the reliability of the care that they render,” Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said in a statement. “Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries deserve care that is free from the taint of referrals that were driven by the providers’ financial interest.”
Under the terms of the settlement, the defendants will pay $10 million to the government and $5 million to a group of former SCMC and UDL staff who filed a whistleblower suit against their former employers.
California will be reimbursed $7 million for Medi-Cal claims related to the suit, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Rasekhi surrendered his medical license earlier this month, weeks after the Medical Board of California filed an accusation against him detailing allegations that he sexually abused three women under his care.
His attorney said Rasekhi denied all the allegations, and chose to waive his rights to a hearing and retire from medicine rather than contest the accusations.