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A New York vascular surgeon has admitted guilt and will pay $800,000 to settle charges that he performed unnecessary procedures on patients with kidney disease, (DOJ).

Feng Qin, MD, is also prohibited from participating in Medicare and other federal healthcare programs for 4 years -- in addition to the more than 2 years he's been excluded since his arrest, which was a condition of his bail, prosecutors said.

Qin was practicing in lower Manhattan and Far Rockaway, New York, when he was criminally charged in December 2018 with fraudulently billing Medicare for unnecessary procedures on end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients.

From 2015 to 2016, Qin routinely performed fistulagrams and angioplasties on these patients, even when there wasn't a good clinical reason to do so, according to DOJ. He also routinely scheduled these procedures 3 months in advance.

Qin also misrepresented patients' conditions in their medical records to make it seem as though they had symptoms that would warrant the procedures when they didn't.

Qin's practice, Qin Medical, then billed Medicare and got paid for these unnecessary procedures, DOJ said.

"By billing Medicare for medically unnecessary procedures, Dr. Qin needlessly compromised patient care and victimized taxpayers," Scott Lampert, Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General special agent in charge, said in a statement. "Our agency will continue to hold medical professionals accountable, while protecting the federal health care programs intended for those that depend on them for critical services."

Patients with ESRD on dialysis sometimes need vascular access procedures like fistulagrams, which involve injecting contrast to visualize blood flow, and percutaneous transluminal angioplasties to restore blood flow in narrowed vessels -- but that was not the case for many of Qin's patients, DOJ said.

The settlement resolves both civil and criminal healthcare fraud cases against Qin and Qin Medical. He was criminally charged in December 2018 with fraudulently billing Medicare for unnecessary procedures, and U.S. attorneys subsequently filed a civil complaint that month as well.

Under the civil settlement, Qin agreed to pay a federal fine of $783,200, along with a $16,800 fine to New York, for a total of $800,000 -- in addition to admitting responsibility and being excluded from Medicare.

His criminal prosecution will be deferred for a year, when prosecutors will then seek to dismiss charges if Qin abides by the agreement's terms.

The allegations against Qin were initially brought by a whistleblower who filed a lawsuit under the False Claims Act.

Qin has previously paid $150,000 to settle a prior civil fraud lawsuit against him and his previous employer for engaging in fraudulent billing practices from 2010 to 2012.

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