FLOWER MOUND, Texas — A Flower Mound doctor was sentenced to over 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $34 million after pleading guilty to participating in a scheme to defraud Medicare, officials said.
Daniel Canchola, 54, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to commit wire fraud in October 2022, according to a press release from the Department of Justice. Canchola prescribed durable medical equipment and cancer genetic testing without seeing, speaking to or treating patients, the release states.
He agreed to sign doctors' orders for the equipment and testing that he knew would be used to submit fraudulent claims to Medicare, the release states. From August 2018 through April 2019, he received $30 in exchange for each doctor's order he signed, amounting to $466,000 in kickbacks.
The orders were used to submit more than $54 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare.
The fraudsters targeted Medicare beneficiaries through telemarketing campaigns and at health fairs. The medicare patients were induced to submit to genetic testing and receive the medical equipment.
The Department of Justice has charged more than 5,400 defendants who collectively have billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $27 billion since 2007, the release states.
More Texas headlines:
