Doctor responsible for $742K ‘residency prep’ scheme gets 3-year sentence
A doctor in St. Louis who scammed federal healthcare programs out of hundreds of thousands of dollars has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison, followed by another three years of supervised release.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Sonny Saggar, MD, will also have to repay the $742,528 he was convicted of taking in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for patient visits he did not conduct.
According to prosecutors, the 57-year-old operated St. Louis General Hospital clinics in which physician assistants would often see patients. In many such instances, Saggar billed health plans as if he were the one providing direct care.
The incidents happened between 2018 and 2023, sometimes when Saggar was out of town. After a DOJ investigation, he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy in August.
As part of his confession, Saggar admitted to hiring “numerous” assistants to provide urgent and primary care to patients on his behalf. The DOJ said that, under Missouri law, this is expressly illegal, especially since many of the assistants were not qualified to provide unsupervised care. While they had completed medical school, they did not finish a required residency.
Further, when hiring the assistants, Saggar would market the roles as “residency prep” and a “stepping stone” toward full qualification, federal prosecutors claimed.
“This crime went beyond bilking taxpayer funded healthcare programs. Dr. Sonny Saggar risked the well-being of patients with urgent medical needs. He knew his assistant physicians were not qualified to see patients without supervision,” Special Agent in Charge Ashley Johnson of the FBI St. Louis Division said in a statement.
Saggar was also accused of offering kickbacks in the form of monthly stipends to other physicians, effectively paying collaborators. One of those colleagues was indicted on other charges. His office manager, Renita Barringer, 51, was also arrested and pleaded guilty in December to a count of conspiracy for her role in the scheme. She is expected to be sentenced in April.
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Missouri Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit said they all cooperated in the investigation against Saggar, et al.
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