A Los Angeles, California, woman was sentenced Tuesday to roughly three years in prison for her involvement in a $14 million Medicare fraud scheme. Sophia Shaklian, a Los Angeles resident, was sentenced to 35 months in federal prison for defrauding Medicare out of $14 million by “submitting fraudulent claims for hospice care and diagnostic testing services that were either unnecessary or not provided at all,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
After pleading guilty in November to one count of healthcare fraud she was ordered to pay more than $14 million in restitution. “From March 2019 to August 2024, Shaklian and her co-schemers – often using aliases – used multiple bogus hospice and diagnostic testing providers enrolled with Medicare and submitted fraudulent claims on behalf of companies she owned,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. The fraudsters used the information of Medicare beneficiaries and willfully submitted fraudulent claims to Medicare on their behalf.
