Summit Oncologist, Madison Biller Plead Guilty to Health Care Fraud

JACKSON, MS—Dr. Meera Sachdeva, 50, of Summit, Mississippi, and Monica Weeks, 40, of Madison, Mississippi, each pled guilty today to charges of Medicare fraud, U.S. Attorney Gregory K. Davis, FBI Special Agent in Charge Daniel McMullen, and Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood announced.

Sachdeva, who owned and operated Rose Cancer Center in Summit, pled guilty to submitting claims for chemotherapy services that were supposedly rendered when she was out of the country. Weeks, who owned and operated The Medical Billing Group in Madison, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud by covering up false claims made by Sachdeva that were scheduled for an audit.

According to the indictment in this case, Sachdeva is alleged to have billed for more chemotherapy drugs than she actually purchased from drug suppliers from 2007 to 2011. During the plea hearing, the Assistant United States Attorney told the court that if the case had gone to trial, the government would have proven that “[t]he defendant would prepare...chemotherapy treatments by injecting the prescribed chemotherapy drugs into a bag of fluid that would then be connected to the patient via a ‘chest port.’ Each patient believed that they were receiving an amount of chemotherapy medicine that was equal to the amount being billed to their respective health care benefit programs. The defendant was not providing each patient with the fully prescribed dosage of many of the billed chemotherapy drugs.”

Both Sachdeva and Weeks are scheduled to be sentenced on October 1, 2012, by United States District Judge Daniel P. Jordan, III. Weeks faces a maximum of 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and the forfeiture of a $19,549.52 money judgment. Sachdeva faces up to 20 years in prison, $750,000 in fines, and the forfeiture of almost $6,000,000 in illegal proceeds that were previously seized by the government, as well as the forfeiture of several parcels of real property located throughout the state.

The case was investigated by the United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General, the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.