An Essex County doctor, Muhammad Mirza, was sentenced to 26 months in prison for his involvement in a scheme to fraudulently bill Amtrak’s employee health care plan for unnecessary services. The scheme ran from April 2017 to June 2022 and involved submitting false claims to Amtrak’s health insurance company for services that were either never provided or medically unnecessary.
Mirza and his co-conspirators paid Amtrak employees to use their health insurance billing information to submit fraudulent claims. As a result, Amtrak lost over $1.3 million due to the fraudulent scheme. Mirza operated medical offices in several states, including New Jersey and New York.
In addition to his prison sentence, Mirza was ordered to pay $1.37 million in restitution and serve two years of supervised release. An attorney for Mirza did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the sentence. An Amtrak spokesperson referred questions to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The case highlights the dangers of fraudulent billing practices in the healthcare industry and the need for strict oversight and accountability measures to prevent such schemes from occurring in the first place.