Indian American doctors seem to be in the limelight this year with numerous cases of fraud being investigated and the number of convictions growing.

Dr. Ankur Roy, 38, of Miami Beach, Florida was operating Selectcare Health, Inc which is an outpatient physical and respiratory therapy centres located in Park Ridge and Skokiealong.

He along with his codefendants Dipen Desai and Akash Patel were found guilty and are being sentenced to federal prison for engaging in a $2.5 million health care fraud scheme.

Roy and his co-defendants submitted false and fraudulent health insurance claim forms to Medicare and Blue Cross Blue Shield for respiratory therapy services that were never provided to patients.

Roy was sentenced June 5, to 75 months in prison followed by 3 years of supervision after his release by U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feinerman. Roy was charged in 2013 with two co-defendants who both pled guilty; Dipen Desai, who was sentenced to 27 months’ imprisonment in December 2014, and Akash Patel, who is scheduled to be sentenced in July. Roy was convicted of five counts of the indictment by a jury in July 2014.

“Defendant Roy’s fraud deprived Medicare and Blue Cross Blue Shield of over $2.5 million, a substantial sum of money that should have gone to pay for medical services for senior citizens, and not to line his and his partners’ pockets,”  Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen Merin argued at sentencing.

The sentence today was announced by Zachary T. Fardon, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Robert J. Holley, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Chicago; Lamont Pugh III, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Regional Office of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General; and James Vanderberg, Special Agent-in-Charge of the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General in Chicago.

The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen Merin.