HARTFORD, Conn. —
Attorney General William Tong secured a $14,982,081 court judgment on Tuesday.
The judgement was against former Norwalk primary care physician Dr. Ramil Mansourov over allegations that he illegally billed the Connecticut Medical Assistance Program for millions of dollars in services he never provided.
The Office of the Attorney General and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration held an investigation leading up to the judgement.
They found that while Mansourov operated the Norwalk Family Health Urgent Care Center from 2014 to 2016, he fabricated and submitted thousands of fake reimbursement claims for services he never provided to Connecticut Medicaid patients. These claims included office visits, home visits and nursing home visits.
The investigation found that the billing codes used provided Mansourov the maximum reimbursement rates for these claims. They reported that in some cases, Mansourov billed for services in Connecticut on dates when he was working in Kentucky, or vacationing in Florida, the Dominican Republic or Italy.
In total, the investigation found that he defrauded the Connecticut Medical Assistance Program of $4,994,027.
The Office of the Attorney General then filed a suit against Mansourov under the False Claims Act, which allows the State to obtain a judgment in Hartford Superior Court this month for three times the amount of damages sustained. Additionally, The Office of the U.S. Attorney filed criminal charges.
“Ramil Mansourov engaged in a massive, brazen fraud over the course of many years, robbing the State of millions of dollars. He is now paying a heavy price for those illegal acts. In conjunction with our federal and state partners, the Office of the Attorney General will not tolerate those who abuse and defraud our state’s healthcare programs,” Attorney General Tong said in a statement. “I thank the attorneys and investigators in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the United States’ Attorney’s Office, the Department of Social Services, and our office who aggressively pursued this case for multiple years, and those in our office who have now secured the maximum justice for the State.”
Mansourov fled to Canada in 2017 following his knowledge of the charges. He was then arrested by Canadian authorities and returned to the states. Mansourov was convicted in 2019 and sentenced to 87 months in prison, where he is currently incarcerated.
“On behalf of the Connecticut Medical Assistance Program and Medicaid enrollees, I would like to thank the Attorney General’s Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Department of Social Services investigators for their skilled and dedicated work on this especially appalling case of medical fraud,” Social Services Commissioner Deidre S. Gifford said.
The Attorney General’s Antitrust and Government Program Fraud Department asks that anyone with knowledge of suspected fraud or abuse in the public healthcare system is asked to contact them at 860-808-5040 or by email at ag.fraud@ct.gov; the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit at 860-258-5986 or by email at conndcj@ct.gov; or the Department of Social Services fraud reporting hotline at 1-800-842-2155, online at www.ct.gov/dss/reportingfraud, or by email to providerfraud.dss@ct.gov.
HERE ARE MORE WAYS TO GET FOX61 NEWS
Download the FOX61 News APP
iTunes: Click here to download
Google Play: Click here to download
Stream Live on ROKU: Add the channel from the ROKU store or by searching FOX61.
