A Michigan home healthcare company owner has been sentenced to three years and five months in prison for his role in a healthcare fraud conspiracy.
The conspiracy resulted in over $7.9 million in Medicare Part A-covered false and fraudulent claims for home healthcare services.
On Thursday, November 14, 2024, court filings charged Muhammad Zafar, 53, of Wayne County. He owns and operates a home healthcare business in Michigan.
Zafar, along with three doctors and two other home healthcare firm owners, gave kickbacks, bribes, and other inducements to Medicare beneficiary recruiters in exchange for beneficiary information. Zafar and his co-conspirators exploited this information to bill Medicare for medically unwarranted and unprovided services.
Zafar admitted to filing roughly $393,500 in claims to Medicare from his home healthcare company for medically unnecessary treatments that were ineligible for Medicare reimbursement and were not supplied as advertised.
On June 17, 2015—the same day Zafar appeared in court for his first appearance—he broke his court-issued bond, crossed the international border into Canada, and traveled to Pakistan shortly thereafter.
Zafar remained an international fugitive for about seven and a half years before coming to the United States to face his charges.
Zafar pleaded guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy to conduct healthcare fraud on May 29. The court sentenced him to three years and five months.