Ananthakumar Thillainathan, MD, 45, was sentenced to four years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for behavioral health fraud and kickbacks, the Justice Department said April 27.
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.