The owner of Michigan Hematology Oncology Centers has been charged in a $35 million chemotherapy scheme, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
 
His scheme, authorities say, involved submitting false claims to Medicare for services that weren’t medically necessary – including chemotherapy treatments. He falsified documents to justify cancer treatments for billing purposes, and he directed others to do the same, according to a news release.
 
Dr. Farid Fata, 48, was arrested Tuesday.
 
Michigan Hematology Oncology Centers billed Medicare for about $35 million over two years; about $25 million is attributable to Fata, the release states.
Fata endangered patient safety “through misdiagnoses, over- or mis-prescription of chemotherapy and other treatments, and delay of hospital care for patients with serious injuries,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division says in a release.
 
According to the release, Fata “directed the administration of unnecessary chemotherapy to patients in remission; deliberate misdiagnoses of patients as having cancer to justify unnecessary cancer treatment; administration of chemotherapy to end-of-life patients who would not have benefitted from the treatment; deliberate misdiagnoses of patients without cancer to justify expensive testing; fabrication of other diagnoses such as anemia and fatigue to justify unnecessary hematology treatments, and distribution of controlled substances to patients without medical necessity or through administering the drugs at dangerous levels.”