Home Health & Hospice Week

Billing unnecessary physician services for hospice patients was part of the conviction.

Six months after being convicted of Medicare fraud, Louisiana hospice owner Shiva Akula is facing the music.

Recap: Akula’s hospice, Canon Healthcare, had employees bill for unnecessary General Inpatient services and for evaluation and management services that shouldn’t have been billed separately, the Department of Justice said in a release when Akula was indicted in 2021. Canon, which had locations in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Covington, and Gulfport, Miss., also submitted claims to Medicare for about 1,949 home visits that “were purported to have been performed by a doctor, when a doctor did not perform home visits,” the DOJ added.

In addition to sentencing Akula to 20 years in prison, the federal court also ordered him to repay $42 million in fraudulent proceeds back to Medicare, the DOJ says in a new release.

“Shiva Akula showed no regard for quality end-of-life hospice care,” the HHS Office of Inspector General’s Jason E. Meadows says in a release. “Instead, Akula’s motivation centered around multiple fraud schemes to maximize profit and steal from American taxpayers,” Meadows says.

“Each fraudulent claim filed by Mr. Akula potentially deprived another deserving and suffering individual from the emotional and physical comfort of end-of-life care,” said the FBI’s Lyonel Myrthil in the release.