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The Division of Workers’ Compensation has suspended 11 more medical providers from participating in California’s workers’ compensation system, bringing the total number of providers suspended to 177. The providers were suspended for fraud or other criminal actions, or the loss of their license.

The most notorious on the list are Edward Aslanyan, Armen Shagoyen and Carolyn Vasquez, who were convicted in federal court for conspiracy to defraud Medicare through their medical clinics and durable medical equipment companies in Los Angeles County.

Their case dates back to 2008 when Federal and state Medicare Fraud Strike Force (MFSF) agents arrested 18 people in the greater Los Angeles area. Agents targeted durable medical equipment (DME) company owners, medical professionals and medical clinic owners who were alleged to have engaged in various schemes to defraud Medicare of $33,264,133 in fraudulent billing.

The eight indictments in which the defendants were initially charged outline various types of fraud including schemes involving the fraudulent ordering of power wheelchairs, orthotics, hospital beds, enteral nutrition and feeding supplies. Enteral nutrition is sustenance ingested by patients through a feeding apparatus. In addition, federal agents began executing search warrants at six locations throughout Los Angeles County.

The first indictment charged Armen Shagoyan, Edward Aslanyan, Carolyn A. Vasquez, and Zurama C. Espana, with conspiring to submit more than $16.3 million in Medicare claims for medically unnecessary power wheelchairs between April 2007 and June 2008 from medical clinics they owned in Los Angeles and Van Nuys.

In addition to the clinics, Aslanyan and Shagoyan were charged with owning multiple DME companies that allegedly billed Medicare for unnecessary items. Shagoyan, Aslanyan, Vasquez and Espana were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. Shagoyan, Aslanyan and Vasquez were also charged with six counts of submitting false claims to the Medicare program. Espana was additionally charged with four counts of submitting false claims to the Medicare program.

Aslanyan was sentenced to federal prison for 77 months and ordered to pay more than $10 million in restitution. Shagoyen was sentenced to federal prison for 12 months and 1 day. Vasquez was sentenced to federal prison for 60 months and ordered to pay more than $6 million in restitution.