A Los Angeles woman was sentenced to nearly three years in prison and ordered to pay more than $14 million in restitution for her role in a Medicare fraud scheme involving false hospice and diagnostic testing services that were either unnecessary or never given.
Sophia Shaklian was sentenced to 35 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfield Jr. on Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced. She pleaded guilty to one count of healthcare fraud in November.
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The DOJ explained that the 38-year-old, a resident of the Larchmont neighborhood of L.A., and her “co-schemers” often used aliases and multiple bogus hospice and diagnostic testing providers enrolled with Medicare and submitted fraudulent claims on behalf of firms she owned, including her hospice company, Chateau d’Lumina Hospice and Palliative Care, and several diagnostic testing providers: Saint Gorge Radiology in Sylmar; Hope Diagnostics in North Hollywood; Direct Imaging & Diagnostics and Lab One – both based in Hollywood; and Labtech and Lifescan Diagnostics in Claremont.
The plan ran from March 2019 to August 2024, according to the DOJ.
“Shaklian and her co-schemers used the information of Medicare beneficiaries, and checked beneficiaries’ Medicare eligibility to knowingly and willfully submit fraudulent claims to Medicare on behalf of beneficiaries who did not need the services, had never received the services, and were not familiar with the fraudulent hospice and diagnostic testing providers, with the intent to defraud Medicare into reimbursing the sham providers for those claimed services,” the justice department stated. “For example, Shaklian and her co-schemers knowingly and willfully submitted a false and fraudulent claim for $2,000 in November 2022 to Medicare for diagnostic testing purportedly provided to an individual.”
As part of her plea deal, Shaklian admitted to filing fraudulent claims on behalf of the sham providers, some by herself and others by her co-schemers, both during and after the scheme. Investigators determined that because she was involved in the billing and was familiar with Medicare payments to fraudulent providers, she caused the federal health insurance program to lose at least $14,103,043, according to the DOJ; Shaklian must pay that amount in restitution.
Alex Alexsanian, 48, of Burbank, faces up to 20 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments.
Alexsanian, also known as “Samvel” or “Samo,” is scheduled to be sentenced on April 28.
