A Connecticut podiatrist faces a lifetime in prison for billing simple nail care to Medicare as nail avulsions.
Samir Zaky of Brookfield, Conn. ran Affiliated Podiatrists, LLC. According a federal indictment, in 2010 “devised a scheme and artifice to defraud Medicare” to bill for nail avulsions using CPT code 11730 when he had in fact “performed only routine foot care, such as clipping of toe nails” on the patients.
Agents of the FBI and HHS
raided Zaky’s home in August 2010, yet Zaky, per the indictment, continued his fraud into 2011.
Zaky was
arrested in November 2012 and charged with 14 counts of health care fraud and 14 counts of false statements. Zaky seems not to have had an easy time under prosecution; according to court documents, his lawyer abandoned him, as did the federal defender subsequently appointed to represent him, Sarah A.L. Merriam. Merriam cited “an irretrievable breakdown of confidence in the attorney-client relationship.”
On June 14, 2013, a jury found Zaky
guilty on all counts. The DOJ reveals that in the 2010 raid, the feds found $29,000 in cash, which they have asked the judge to seize in forfeit. DOJ also says Zaky faces a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years on each count of health care fraud, and a maximum term of imprisonment of five years of each count of making a false statement.