Dr. Paresh Patel admitted accepting $174,000 in kickbacks for referring patient testing to Biosound Medical Services.
TRENTON -- An internal medicine physician with a practice in Jamesburg will spend a year in federal prison for accepting bribes in exchange for patient referrals to a mobile diagnostic company, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
Paresh Patel, 55, of Franklin Township, pleaded guilty earlier before U.S. District Judge Mary L. Cooper to a charge of violating the Anti-Kickback Statute.
According to prosecutors, Patel accepted more than $174,000 in bribes from September 2009 through December 2013 for referring patients to Biosound Medical Services. Biosound Medical, based in Morris County, paid the kickbacks in the form of paying Patel's property taxes for both his home and office, and for and home renovations, a court record charging him says.
In one example, Biosound Medical, owned by Nita K. Patel and Kirtish N. Patel (no relation to Paresh Patel) paid $20,000 directly to a contractor for Paresh Patel's home renovations, the court record says.
Doctor fueled gambling habit with kickbacks
Patel's referrals brought $165,000 in reimbursements from Medicare to Biosound Medical, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars from other insurers, it says.
In addition to the prison term, Patel was ordered to pay a fine of $6,000, and also ordered to forfeit the $174,000 in bribe payments, Fishman's office said.
Nita K. Patel and Kirtish N. Patel, pleaded guilty on Nov. 17 to health care fraud for forging physician signatures on diagnostic reports never reviewed by a specialist physician, Fishman's office said. Kirtish N. Patel, who did not have a medical license, wrote the reports, it said.
Both await sentencing.
Paresh Patel's sentencing occurred on the same day another physician, Bret Ostrager of Woodbury, N.Y., was sentenced in Newark federal court to 37 months in prison for accepting kickbacks to refer his patients' blood tests to a lab in Parsippany.