Back in 2013, federal agents arrested a Detroit-area cancer specialist after evidence came to light that he had masterminded a staggering health care fraud. This quack, Farid Fata, told perfectly healthy people that they had cancer, subjected them to highly invasive chemotherapy, and stuck Medicare and private insurance companies with the bill. Almost a year after pleading guilty to his crimes, Fata sat down earlier today for a week-long sentencing hearing that could put him behind bars for the rest of his natural life.
Fata was the owner of Michigan Hematology and Oncology, the largest private cancer practice in Michigan. At its height, it boasted seven clinics in Metro Detroit. However, this past September, he pleaded guilty to what Barbara McQuade, the U. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, called “the most egregious case of health care fraud I have ever seen.” Fata pleaded guilty to 13 counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to? seek kickbacks from two hospices, and pouring the Medicare and private insurance proceeds into a diagnostic testing facility where he administered unnecessary cancer detection tests.
Although Fata pleaded guilty, McQuade wants Fata sentenced to 175 years in prison, the maximum sentence under federal sentencing guidelines. Anyone who thinks this would be too harsh should read the sentencing memorandum prepared by McQuade’s office. It reveals that Fata tricked and bullied over 550 people into undergoing chemo regimens they didn’t need, resulting in over $34.7 million in fraudulent insurance claims. Prosecutors believe the harm Fata? his patients makes him “the most egregious fraudster in the history of this country.”
One of them was Robert Sobieray, who was falsely diagnosed with blood cancer in 2010. The retired auto worker lost nearly all of his teeth to chemo, and still twitches uncontrollably. Another was Patty Hester, who was tricked into giving away several of her belongings after being falsely told she had a terminal cancer-like condition. Hester lost a good chunk of her hair, and also suffers from high blood pressure due to the stress of finding out her diagnosis was a big lie.
Another patient, known only as “C. C.,” told prosecutors that as a result of 177 unnecessary chemo treatments, she can no longer perform the most basic tasks. She also has bladder and bowel issues and kidney disease. With stories like these, it’s no wonder that McQuade was in no mood for mercy. She thinks Fata should spend the rest of his life in prison for “torturing” his patients by telling them they had cancer when they were perfectly healthy.
The fraud came to light in 2013, when one of Fata’s patients, Linda Flagg, broke her leg in two places shortly after her first round of chemo. Flagg had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable and invasive bone marrow cancer that requires a lifetime of chemo to control. When one of the doctors at Fata’s practice, Soe Maunglay, looked at Flagg’s chart and noticed her readings were completely normal–which meant that in all likelihood, she didn’t have cancer at all.
Maunglay later told The Detroit News that myleoma often starts with changes in blood chemistry minor enough that a dishonest doctor can use the treatment to throw others off the scent. Had it not been for Maunglay’s sharp eye, another doctor may have looked at Flagg in a few months and believed she was in remission.
Maunglay dug deeper into MHO’s records, and found a number of instances that suggested unethical behavior at best and health care fraud at worst. Fortunately, MHO’s practice manager, George Karadsheh, knew what health care fraud smelled like; he’d unmasked fraudulent practices at another clinic 15 years earlier. Karadsheh called the FBI on August 2, and Fata was arrested four days later. He pleaded guilty last September.
Fata’s attorneys think that their client should only get 25 years. However, in light of the havoc he wreaked, that’s downright laughable. McQuade put it best when Fata admitted being the mastermind of this health care fraud in September–Fata knew he was giving his patients “poison intended to kill cancer cells” when they didn’t really need it.
Seen in that light, the parallels being drawn between Bernie Madoff and this quack are more than accurate. Just like Madoff, Fata used people as mere commodities to enrich himself–and everything else be damned. For anyone who engages in this kind of behavior on this scale, anything less than 40 years–effectively a life sentence at Fata’s age–would be a joke.
