The co-owner of a pharmacy and his wife have been sentenced to federal prison in a scheme to defraud health benefit providers of more than $65 million. <\/p>\n
Samuel \u201cSam\u201d Khaimov, 52, of Glen Head, New York, received an 87-month sentence on Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office District of New Jersey said in a statement. His wife, 48-year-old Yana Shtindler, was sentenced to 72 months. <\/p>\n
The couple pleaded guilty last year<\/a> \u2014 Khaimov to two counts of conspiring to commit health care fraud and conspiring to violate the federal anti-kickback statute, and Shtindler to conspiring to commit health care fraud.<\/p>\n The now closed Prime Aid Pharmacies operated locations in Union City and Bronx, New York. Khaimov was co-owner of the Union City location and lead pharmacist of the Bronx location. His wife was the administrator of the Union City location. <\/p>\n The two pharmacies processed expensive medications used to treat conditions such as Hepatitis C, Crohn\u2019s disease and rheumatoid arthritis, federal authorities said. <\/p>\n Starting in 2009, to obtain a higher volume of prescriptions, Prime Aid paid bribes to doctors and doctors\u2019 employees to induce the doctors and their staffs to steer prescriptions to the Prime Aid pharmacies, officials said. <\/p>\n Prime Aid Union City also engaged in the pervasive and fraudulent practice of billing health benefit providers and pharmacy benefits managers for medications that were never provided to patients, according to federal prosecutors. While Prime Aid generally provided medications for initial prescriptions it received, it systematically billed for refills for those same medications without ever dispensing them to patients, authorities said. <\/p>\n From 2013 through 2017, Prime Aid Union City received at least $65 million in reimbursement payments from Medicare, Medicaid, and private health benefit providers for medications that Prime Aid Union City not only failed to give patients, but never even ordered or had in stock, federal prosecutors said. <\/p>\n Two other pharmacy employees, Ruben Sevumyants and Alex Fleyshmakher, both of Marlboro, have previously pleaded guilty<\/a> to federal charges and are awaiting sentencing. The other co-owner of the Union City pharmacy, Igor Fleyshmakher, has pleaded guilty to separate federal charges and is awaiting sentencing. <\/p>\n Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nicolas Fernandes may be reached at nfernandes@njadvancemedia.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The co-owner of a pharmacy and his wife have been sentenced to federal prison in a scheme to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,13890,9243,10000,13891,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,13892,28920,13893,9452,13894,3535,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-34942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-bottle","10":"tag-color","11":"tag-drug","12":"tag-medical-science","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-opiates","20":"tag-oxycodone","21":"tag-oxycontin","22":"tag-painkiller","23":"tag-percocet","24":"tag-prescription","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-united-states-of-america","27":"tag-unitedstates","28":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114788605911333735","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}