A North Texas doctor was sentenced to 10 years and one month in prison Tuesday for a scheme to defraud Medicare out of millions of dollars, authorities said.
Dr. Daniel Canchola, 54, of Flower Mound, accepted bribes and kickbacks for ordering bogus cancer screening tests and medical equipment, the Justice Department said. Canchola, who pleaded guilty in 2022 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, was also ordered to pay $34 million in restitution.
Federal prosecutors say Canchola signed scores of phony doctor’s orders for genetic cancer tests without examining or speaking to patients, who were recruited at health fairs and by telemarketers.
Between August 2018 to April 2019, Canchola received about $30 for each order, totaling more than $466,000 in kickbacks, federal court documents say. Orders signed by Canchola were then used to submit more than $54 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare.
Canchola’s arrest in 2019 was part of a nationwide bust targeting fraudulent genetic cancer testing, which the Justice Department called “one of the largest health care fraud schemes ever charged.” The case produced charges against 35 people in several states, including Texas, Florida and Georgia, according to federal officials. A total of $2.1 billion was billed to Medicare for the bogus DNA tests.
The nine physicians, including Canchola, were associated with telemedicine companies that provided remote care and cancer genetic testing laboratories. Two other Texas physicians, Dr. Sekhar Rao and Dr. Vinay Parameswara, both of Austin, were also convicted in the scheme.
An investigation by CBS News in 2019 found that recruiters convinced seniors to submit DNA samples in exchange for a “free” genetic cancer risk test. Many never received the results from the tests, but their Medicare accounts were billed for thousands of dollars.
Bob Thomas, a former federal prosecutor who now represents whistleblowers in healthcare fraud cases, told CBS News that some of these people may not qualify for legitimate DNA tests in the future.
“And it’s tragic in some ways because these people aren’t going to get two bites at this apple,” he said.