Farid Fata’s Chemotherapy Scam on Hundreds of Patients Gets Him 45 Years in Prison

In what is being called the most serious case of medical fraud in U.S. history, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Borman sentenced oncologist Farid Fata to 45 years in prison and ordered him to pay more than $17.6 million in restitution for scamming hundreds of patients. His upscale clinics were located in the Detroit area of Lapeer County. The fraud came to light when Fata’s office manager, George Karadsheh, filed a whistleblower lawsuit.

Fata falsely diagnosed some patients with cancer and then treated them with odd doses of chemotherapy drugs causing them to suffer organ damage, immune system depletion and nerve damage. Some of his patients actually had terminal cancer, making chemotherapy useless; however, he prescribed it for them anyway because it was profitable for him.

Farid Fata pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud, money laundering and asking for kickbacks. Court papers reveal that he scammed more than 500 patients. He told some patients they had cancer when they did not, and he gave them improper doses and continued chemo treatments for patients for whom it would not have made a difference.

About 20 of Fata’s patients testified about how the doctor had taken their money, violated their trust, and ruined their health. Some spoke about their fear of dying from cancers they never really had. Others were left with chronic health problems from cancer treatments that were given when they didn’t have cancer.

Healthcare fraud in America

In an article in The Economist, the author writes about what a tempting target health care in the U.S. is. In 2012, fraud added more than $98 billion to annual Medicare and Medicaid spending, and as much as $272 billion across the entire health care system in the country.

From over-billing for services to stealing patients’ identities, phony invoices and turning doctors’ offices into prescription-writing mills for pain medication, health care fraud takes on many different forms. In May of 2014, 107 doctors and nurses were arrested for health care fraud in several cities and charged with cheating Medicaid out of $452 million. The Medicare Fraud Strike Force visited 1600 businesses in Miami at random and found that one third did not even exist despite having billed Medicare for $237 million in the past year.

While health care fraud and scams continue to cost the U.S. government billions of dollars each year, there does not seem to a solution in sight.

Meanwhile, Dr. Fata has lost his medical license and he has been forced to forfeit everything he owns including $9.1 million from 15 bank accounts, a home worth $1.4 million and other assets.

The victims and family members of former patients wore yellow to court to hear Fata’s sentence being read. They said that the color yellow symbolized the sunshine that they hoped Fata would never see again.