An interventional cardiologist who implanted stents in patients who did not need
them has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for healthcare fraud. Dr
Mehmood Patel, formerly of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and Lafayette General
Hospital in Louisiana, was convicted on 51 counts of billing private and
government health insurers for unnecessary medical procedures and received the
maximum sentence.

Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and Lafayette General Hospital both suspended
Patel's privileges in late 2003 or early 2004 as a result of their own internal
investigations. Elisabeth Arnold, a spokesperson at Our Lady of Lourdes Regional
Medical Center, told heartwire that the hospital reached legal closure on the
issue long before Patel's sentencing.

The hospital paid $3.8 million in 2006 to settle a US Department of Justice
false-claims lawsuit and also paid an additional $7.4 million to settle a
class-action lawsuit brought by Patel's former patients. Arnold noted that in
the past several years, the hospital has "increased physician leadership in our
organization, implemented more stringent policies, and improved peer-review
initiatives."

Patel's trial began in October 2008 and lasted 11 weeks. The 64-year-old doctor
was initially indicted on 91 charges of fraud involving 75 patients. During his
trial, 80 government witnesses testified, as did experts from Emory University,
the University of Pennsylvania, Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, and the
University of California, Los Angeles. The medical experts testified about a
small number of procedures performed by Patel during a three-year period covered
by the indictment, but their testimony stated that Patel performed tests and
procedures in patients with little or no disease, according to the Department of
Justice [1].

Testimony during the trial also revealed that Patel falsified patient symptoms
in medical records, including chest pain when patients never complained of such
pain, and falsified findings on medical tests. From 1999 to 2003, Patel billed
Medicare and private insurance companies more than $3 million, according to the
Advocate, a Baton Rouge, LA newspaper [2]. During this time, he was the top
cardiology biller in the state and personally pocketed more than $500 000.

US District Court Judge Tucker Melançon called Patel "a brilliant and talented
physician" and stated he was unsure whether the doctor was driven by pure greed
or ego. Regardless, Melançon had little sympathy for Patel when sentencing him,
noting that the doctor lied during his 19 days of testimony, contradicting
findings made by the government witness, according to the Advocate.

Patel, who had been in clinical practice in Louisiana for 25 years, begins
serving his sentence on July 6, 2009 at a federal facility in Oakdale, LA. He
plans to appeal his conviction.