ST. LOUIS – A St. Louis-area doctor who was running two urgent care locations was sentenced Wednesday for over $700,000 worth of fraud involving Medicare and Missouri Medicaid.
According to the U.S. District Court in St. Louis, 57-year-old Sonny Saggar was sentenced to nearly three years in prison and an additional three years of supervised release following. He was charged with one count of conspiracy.
Court documents state that Saggar ran two St. Louis General Hospitals between downtown St. Louis and Creve Coeur. He would charge patients for Medicare and Medicaid as if Saggar had seen the patient when, in reality, only the assistant physician attended to the patient—who are medical school graduates, haven’t completed a residency program, and therefore aren’t licensed. This also occurred while Saggar had been out of town.
These charges caused a loss of $742,528 to Medicare and Missouri’s Medicaid.
In court, Saggar admitted to not properly training or supervising the assistant physicians between July 2018 and July 2023.
As one physician can only supervise six assistant physicians legally, Saggar offered stipends of $480 per month to attract more physicians to sign up as collaborators. This led to falsified reports to the Missouri Board of Registration that assistant physicians were being properly trained.
Additionally, Saggar hired an indicted physician as a collaborator at the Creve Coeur location in January 2022 but did not disclose this information to Medicaid. The physician has since lost billing privileges with Medicaid, records state.
“Doctors are expected to follow a certain code of conduct and obey the laws and regulations put
in place to protect their clients,” DEA St. Louis Division Special Agent in Charge Michael Davis
said in a release. “Our investigation shows that Dr. Saggar broke with protocol and endangered lives with his negligence. As a result of his misconduct, he was arrested, surrendered his DEA Certificate of Registration, can no longer prescribe controlled substances and faces nearly three years in federal prison.”
Saggar’s office manager, Renita Barringer, was also charged with one count of conspiracy for advertising the two locations for assistant physicians. Her sentencing is scheduled for April 22.