On June 10, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a settlement against a Northridge doctor accused of submitting false claims to Medicare and Medi-Cal for drugs, procedures, services and tests that were never administered. Per the settlement, Dr. Kochumian committed to pay more than $9.48 million. The state of California’s share of that is $630,099, plus accrued interest.
Oct. 28 is National Internal Medicine Day. Dr. Kochumian is an internal medicine practitioner who owned and operated a medical clinic located in Northridge, California, according to the announcement.
The case, U.S. and State of CA ex rel., Oganesyan, et al. v. Minas Kochumian, Minas Kochumian, M.D., a Medical Corporation, et al. was filed in the Eastern District of California, in October 2017 under the qui tam or whistleblower provisions of the California and Federal False Claims Acts.
The Acts permit private parties to file suit on behalf of both the State of California and the United States for false claims which defraud the government and to share in a portion of the governments’ recoveries.
Read about the case here.
