Doctor gets 10-year sentence for bilking Medicare out of $100M

Arlington physician Joseph Megwa was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison and ordered by U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade to repay $5.47 million for health care fraud.

Megwa, 60, a Nigerian-American who handled patients from hundreds of home health care agencies, was convicted in May of conspiracy, three counts of fraud and four counts of making false statements for saying he had treated Medicare patients at their homes.

Megwa’s attorney immediately filed an appeal notice of his conviction and sentence. The appeal notice also said Megwa was indigent, and it requested that a new lawyer be named to handle the case.

Kinkeade sentenced Megwa to 120 months in prison for four of the convictions and 60 months for the other four, with the sentences to run concurrently.

Dallas has some of the highest Medicare spending in the nation. While the amounts spent per patient on hospitals, drugs and doctors are not far off the national averages, home health care spending is far above the norm.

The business is rife with corruption, Medicare officials say. Earlier this year, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services imposed a moratorium on certifying any more home health care agencies in Dallas because of fraud concerns.

Many of those in the home health care business in Dallas are Nigerian-Americans, and fraud allegations have rocked the community.

Between 2006 and 2012, federal law enforcement authorities said, more than 230 Dallas-area home health care agencies funneled patients to Megwa to approve $100.5 million in care they didn’t need. The owner of the largest home care agency in the case, Nigerian-American Ferguson Ikhile of Irving, pleaded guilty to health fraud conspiracy and testified against Megwa.
Ikhile is scheduled for sentencing on Jan. 15.

In a separate case, more than 500 Dallas-area home health care agencies are accused of sending patients to Rockwall physician Jacques Roy for fraudulent treatments. Roy allegedly billed Medicare for $374 million to care for more than 11,000 patients.
Roy, who is originally from Montreal, is scheduled to stand trial June.

Nigerian-American Cyprian Akamnonu of Arlington, who owned the largest agency working with Roy, has pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to repay more than $25 million.

In both the Roy and Megwa cases, Nigerian-American caregivers sent the doctors phony therapy plans for thousands of elderly patients. Some of the elderly had no idea what was happening, but others were bribed with food stamps or gift cards to go along with the scheme — including Medicare beneficiaries at the Bridge homeless shelter.

Why am i not surprised that its another Nigerian in a fraud scandal

yeah there is a lot of them ( all nationalities) operating out of store front medical offices in strip malls.

Medicare is a easy target because it is so large and not policed properly. People ( Americans) rip Medicare off for years and never get caught..

The entire system is soo awkward that it can't watch out for itself.

Remember, America is the country that buys the $150.00 hammers from supply contractors.. you know.. the same hammers that sell every day in Home Depot for $20.00. 1 reason is because the requisition form to buy one hammer is like the "dead sea scrolls".. 30 pages of B/S specs and requirements... its a friggin hammer!!

You mean like this? Oakland County receives $150 hammers from federal government, report finds

Some people will believe just about anything, wont they?

Heck,that's just the Johnathan Goodluck-Care!

I believe that I'll have another drink.

The US gives 238.2 million a year to Nigeria which is known to be one of the most corrupt governments in the world.

A sucker is born every minute.

Approximately all of that ends up in the policitians pockets.....
Nigeria has oil and other valuable natural resources....yet the nation is quite fkd up

Believing never got anyone anywhere, but doing gets one quite drunk.

first of all, I don't believe everything I read.. far from it. 2nd of all, I wasn't talking about this article as this is the first time I ever saw this article.

I was talking about a congressional investigation into Government spending that I watched on T.V. about 5 years ago where the Government spent $150.00 on carpenters hammers... regular carpenters hammers.. to prove the point, the congressman leading the investigation purchased the SAME hammer at Home Depot for $20.00... that is where my statement came from

Wow, were you in doubt about your source? I wasn't. But still does that add validity to anything?

That story you pinpoint to TV about 5 years ago was the subject of new investigations 30 to 40 years ago, when there were actual journalist.

Besides, this thread is about medicare, not hammers or I would ask if you knew anything about "government" procurement but then with your post that answer seems obvious.

So getting back on topic, where those hammers used for medical fraud? Is that why that why they billed such huge sums?

Good one.