Dearborn Heights pharmacy owner pleads guilty in $1.9M health care fraud case

A business owner in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit health care fraud in a case that involved $1.9 million in losses, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan said. 

Rabih Hamdan, 41, entered his plea on Tuesday in federal court, the district attorney's office said. During the hearing, Hamdan admitted to creating and operating a scheme to submit false and fraudulent claims for prescription drugs. Financial losses through actions of the co-conspirators in the scheme added up to at least $1.9 million during a five-year time frame to Medicare, Medicaid and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. 

"In many instances, his pharmacy lacked the inventory to dispense these drugs but billed the health care insurers as though they had been dispensed. In these instances, the medications were never ordered by a physician," the district attorney's office said. 

Hamdan faces up to 10 years in prison plus fines of up to $250,000. 

The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services - Office of the Inspector General and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.