A Flower Mound family doctor has been charged in a nationwide Medicare fraud bust by federal law enforcement.
Dr. Daniel Canchola, 49, of Flower Mound allegedly accepted kickbacks and bribes for ordering unnecessary cancer screening tests for people he hadn’t spoken to and didn’t even have any sort of physician-patient relationship, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice that was sent last week. Oftentimes, the people for whom Canchola ordered these tests never received their test results.
From about January 2018 through about March 2019, Canchola caused the submission of over $69 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare, according to the Department of Justice. Canchola pleaded not guilty this week. He and 34 other doctors are allegedly responsible for over $2.1 billion in losses in one of the largest health care fraud schemes ever charged.
“These defendants allegedly duped Medicare beneficiaries into signing up for unnecessary genetic tests, costing Medicare billions of dollars,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Together with our law enforcement partners, the Department will continue to protect the public fisc and prosecute those who steal our taxpayer dollars.”
.jpg)
