Dr. Thillainathan is the owner and president of MDCareNow, a practice in Stratford and Milford, Conn., which has been enrolled in the state Medicaid program as an internal medicine group and a behavioral health clinician group.
Between June 2019 and May 2022, Dr. Thillainathan was responsible for $839,724 in fraudulent claims for psychotherapy services he knew were not provided. He submitted claims to Medicaid that falsely represented his employees had rendered 60-minute psychotherapy sessions. Instead, they either had brief conversations with patients, only left a voicemail, or had no contact with them at all, the Justice Department said.
Dr. Thillainathan paid a third-party “patient recruiting” company for each of the more than 1,000 Connecticut Medicaid patients it recruited and transported to MDCareNow, the department said. He paid the company about $100 per patient for initial visits and about $40 per patient thereafter.
Connecticut Medicaid reimbursed MDCareNow more than $1,071,000 for services claimed to be provided to these patients.
Dr. Thillainathan was ordered to pay $1,674,880 in restitution, with $500,000 due within 60 days.
