Ambulance company employeeAharon Aron Krkasharyan, 54, of Los Angeles, California, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge George H. Wu of the Central District of California, who also ordered Krkasharyan to pay $484,556 in restitution to Medicare, jointly and severally with his co-conspirators, who await sentencing. On Nov. 27, 2017, Krkasharyan pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. According to court documents, during the course of the conspiracy, Mauran submitted over $28 million in claims to Medicare. Krkasharyan’s co-defendants admitted that at least $6.6 million of those claims were false and fraudulent claims for medically unnecessary transportation services. Medicare paid at least $3.1 million on those false and fraudulent claims.
Krkasharyan was employed as the Quality Improvement Coordinator for Mauran Ambulance Inc. (Mauran) of San Fernando, California, an ambulance transportation company operating in the greater Los Angeles area that provided non-emergency services to Medicare beneficiaries, many of whom were dialysis patients. As part of his plea, Krkasharyan admitted that between June 2011 and April 2012, he conspired with other Mauran employees to submit claims to Medicare for ambulance transportation services for individuals who did not need such services. Krkasharyan also admitted that he and his co-conspirators instructed Mauran emergency medical technicians to conceal the patients’ true medical conditions by altering paperwork and creating fraudulent reasons to justify the ambulance services.
Krkasharyan was charged along with Toros Onik Yeranosian, 55, the former owner of Mauran; Oxana Loutseiko, 57, the former general manager of Mauran; and Maria Espinoza, 47, a former employee of a Los Angeles dialysis treatment center. Yeranosian, Loutseiko and Espinoza each pleaded guilty and are pending sentencing. The former dispatch supervisor at Mauran, Christian Hernandez, 37, who was previously charged in the case, has also pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing.
The prosecutors in the case found that Mauran billed $28 million in Medicare claims from June 2011 to April 2012 and that $6.6 million was fraudulently billed to Medicare. In addition, the legal team found that Medicare paid for at least $3 million of those fraudulent claims.
Jeffrey Newman represents whistleblowers. He represented the whistleblower in the case of U.S. v MedStar Ambulance, a Medicare fraud case which settled last year for $12.7 million.
