Attorney General George Jepsen has sued a psychiatrist and her husband, alleging that they knowingly submitted inflated and false claims for reimbursement to the state’s Medicaid program.
Jepsen’s complaint, which seeks damages and civil penalties under the Connecticut False Claims Act, alleges that from 2010 to 2014, Dr. Ashwini Sabnis and her husband Saurav Mohanty, co-owners of Brighter Concept Inc. in Fairfield and New Haven, submitted claims for services they never provided or claims that were given more expensive reimbursement codes, a practice known as “upcoding.”
Jepsen said investigators acting on a tip from the Department of Social Services, which oversees Medicaid, found that Sabnis consistently triple or quadruple-booked patients for 15 or 30-minute appointments, then used a reimbursement billing code that required her to see the patients for as long as 80 minutes, when she had sometimes only seen the patients for five or 10 minutes.
Jepsen said investigators identified 113 days where Sabnis billed Medicaid for more than 24 hours of service.
The complaint also alleges that the two attempted to conceal evidence of the fraud from the AG and DSS.
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