From Newsgroup: talk.politics.misc

On 3/10/2026 7:39 AM, Bradley K. Sherman wrote:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth

10 x the man you could ever be.

A medical doctor has pleaded guilty to fraudulently billing insurance companies for COVID-19 testing services and submitting fraudulent
medical records, causing at least $24 million in losses.

Ali Rashan, a medical doctor and the CEO and founder of ClearMD LLC, a provider of COVID-19 testing services in New York City, pled guilty on
Friday before U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer.

Rashan, 42, of New York, New York, pled guilty to one count of
conspiracy to commit health care fraud and one count of false statements relating to health care matters, each of which carries a maximum
sentence of five years in prison.

“Ali Rashan exploited a public health crisis to bill tens of millions in fraudulent claims purportedly filed on behalf of New Yorkers—costs ultimately borne by New York residents and the public more generally,”
said Deputy U.S. Attorney Sean S. Buckley. “That kind of conduct will be pursued, investigated, and prosecuted.”

Court documents say that Rashan, an anesthesiologist, founded and ran
ClearMD LLC, which operated medical clinics that offered testing for
COVID-19 during the global coronavirus pandemic.

From at least 2021 through 2023, Rashan allegedly defrauded healthcare benefit programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Uninsured Program, and private insurance providers, which ultimately caused losses to the insurance providers of
over $24 million.

Rashan opened ClearMD’s first medical clinic in early 2021 and went on
to open several others throughout New York City during the pandemic.
ClearMD clinics operated primarily as COVID-19 testing facilities.
Individuals came to ClearMD for a variety of reasons, including for
diagnosis after suspected COVID-19 exposure, or to obtain clearance to
engage in certain activities, like returning to work or air travel.
ClearMD clinics conducted—and billed for—tens of thousands of COVID-19 tests during the pandemic.

Although the defendant served as ClearMD’s “laboratory director,” he rarely interacted with patients. ClearMD clinics were typically staffed
not with licensed doctors or nurses, but with “medical assistants,” many of whom were college-aged and had no formal training in healthcare prior
to working at ClearMD. Medical assistants swabbed patients and typically
put their sample into a machine, which processed the test. Test results
were then emailed to patients. Medical assistants generally took patient vitals, but there were typically no licensed doctors on site to conduct physical exams of patients, take pertinent medical history, or answer
any questions a patient might have.

Even so, ClearMD often advertised itself as a full-service testing
clinic. Many patients who booked an appointment received an email
confirmation from ClearMD, which stated that the appointment would
include not only a “COVID-19 Diagnostic Test” but also a “Focused patient exam” and a “Follow up telehealth visit to discuss your results.” In practice, however, patients did not receive the level of
care that was claimed in ClearMD’s email confirmations. Instead,
patients typically (1) were not given a “Focused patient exam,” or any physical exam, at the time of testing; (2) were never seen by a
qualified healthcare professional and instead interacted only with a
medical assistant who performed a swab for a single COVID-19 test; and
(3) had no such “telehealth” visit following receipt of their test results, which were instead emailed to them, with no medical guidance.

In addition to advertising services that it ultimately did not provide
to patients, during certain periods, ClearMD also routinely billed
Insurance Providers for multiple services it did not provide. For
example, Rashan directed ClearMD to submit or cause the submission of thousands of claims that billed for evaluation and management services
that were never performed and for two to four COVID-19 testing codes,
even though ClearMD had administered only a single COVID-19 test to
patients.

Insurance Providers were frequently billed as much as $5,000 for a
single COVID-19 test administered by ClearMD.

By in or around early 2022, Insurance Providers requested that ClearMD
provide documentation, such as progress notes of patient encounters and
test results, to support its claims for reimbursement. At the time, at
least one insurance provider also requested a refund of millions of
dollars that the Insurance Provider believed to have been fraudulently
paid to ClearMD. In response to such requests, the defendant instructed ClearMD staff to write a software program to generate fake medical
records to support ClearMD’s fraudulent billings. Specifically, the defendant instructed ClearMD staff to write software that would
fabricate (1) patient progress notes that it could use to justify
billing for E/M codes; and (2) test results for patient visits that it
could use to justify ClearMD’s billing for COVID-19 testing codes. Thereafter, ClearMD staff wrote software that created fabricated records.

The fake patient progress notes typically included both information that
was collected at the time of patient visits to ClearMD (e.g., vitals
such as heart rate, temperature, and blood oxygen saturation) and
information that was never collected (e.g., information for physical examinations that never occurred). Similar to the fabricated progress
notes, the fake test result records contained information that was
fabricated by ClearMD. For example, where the full results of a
patient’s panel test for COVID-19, RSV, and influenza were not
available, the software was written to indicate that the results of the
RSV and influenza components of the test were negative.

The maximum potential sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress
and provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of
the defendant will be determined by the judge. Rashan will be sentenced
by Judge Engelmayer on September 22, 2026.

Buckley praised the outstanding investigative work of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation. Buckley also thanked the Office of Personnel
Management’s Office of Inspector General and the Department of Labor for their assistance in this investigation.

This case is being handled by the Office’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Timothy V. Capozzi, Jackie Delligatti,
and Qais Ghafary are in charge of the prosecution.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/scott-mcclallen/2026/04/19/nyc-doctor-pleads-guilty-to-24m-covid-testing-fraud-scheme-n2674721?utm_medium=widget&utm_source=slider

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