PHILADELPHIA, PA — Aramingo Pharmacy, a Philadelphia-based establishment, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to Medicaid fraud. Attorney General Michelle Henry announced the verdict following an investigation that revealed hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraudulent claims made by the pharmacy to health insurance providers, including Medicaid.
Owned by 32-year-old Ahmed Bachir, Aramingo Pharmacy is now required to pay $573,992 in restitution to the health insurance providers and an additional $300,866 to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Human Services-Bureau of Program Integrity. The total restitution payment amounts to $874,858.
Along with the financial penalty, Bachir’s pharmacist license has been suspended for five years, and he is barred from being a Medicaid provider for the same duration.
Attorney General Henry stated, “Pharmacists are trusted to perform essential duties to responsibly provide medicine that treats illness and keeps Pennsylvanians healthy. In this case, Aramingo Pharmacy was more concerned with personal greed than patient care, using its authority to exploit health insurance providers. Any business or individual that attempts to defraud our healthcare system will be held accountable.”
A Grand Jury investigation found that Bachir and Aramingo Pharmacy billed Medicaid and other providers for prescription medications that were never provided to patients. From June 2019 to June 2021, Aramingo billed providers $573,992 for non-delivered medications.
The pharmacy also used other deceptive tactics to inflate its profits. These included billing for brand-name medications but dispensing the generic form, requesting physicians to prescribe specific unnecessary and expensive medications, and asking physicians to change medications to more costly alternatives. Aramingo also refilled expensive medications and billed insurance companies for these refills without the patient’s knowledge or dispensing these refills, keeping the full payment.
This case was prosecuted by Senior Deputy Attorney General Eric Stryd and investigated by Special Agent Colleen Guss.
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