newjerseynewsroom.com

A New York physician was sentenced to state prison Wednesday for selling prescriptions of controlled dangerous substances (CDS) to Medicaid recipients.

Bipin Parikh, 64, of Williston Park, N.Y., was sentenced to three years and ordered to pay $685,209 in restitution to the Medicaid program by state Superior Court Judge Kevin G. Callahan in Jersey city, according to state Acting Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Riza Dagli. The sentence was based on Parikh's Nov. 9 guilty plea to an accusation which charged health care claims fraud and dispensing of CDS.

In pleading guilty, Parikh admitted that between January 2004 and March 2008, he dispensed prescriptions to Medicaid recipients when the drugs prescribed were not medically necessary. An investigation determined that based on the unnecessary prescriptions dispensed by Parikh, Medicaid was fraudulently billed at least the $685,209.

The accusation also charged that Parikh sold prescriptions for Percocet, a narcotic drug, to undercover police officers.

The charges resulted from a joint-investigation by the state Division of Criminal Justice, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Special Investigations Unit of the Jersey City police. Detectives Jacqueline Latty and Kevin Gannon, Deputy Attorneys General Debra A. Conrad and Linda Rinaldi and Analysts Cleair Budhu and Anne Howell conducted the investigation. Conrad handled the prosecution.

— TOM HESTER SR., NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM