State suspends medical license of doctor accused of Medicaid fraud

A Brookline doctor with South Shore ties whose license was temporarily suspended Wednesday plans to appeal, his attorney said in an email Saturday. The state Board of Registration in Medicine suspended the license of Dr. Punyamurtula Kishore after finding that he posed “an immediate and serious threat to the public health, safety and welfare.”

  

A Brookline doctor with South Shore ties whose license was temporarily suspended Wednesday plans to appeal, his attorney said in an email Saturday.

The state Board of Registration in Medicine suspended the license of Dr. Punyamurtula Kishore after finding that he posed “an immediate and serious threat to the public health, safety and welfare.” Kishore closed clinics in 2011 without notifying patients in advance, according to the board.

Kishore operated dozens of clinics around the state, including two in Quincy and one in Weymouth, specializing in treating heroin addiction. Those clinics closed around the time of his arrest in 2011.

People whose licenses are suspended have the right to file appeals within seven days of the board’s decision.

Kishore also faces a Medicaid fraud charge for allegedly bribing the owner of sober houses with $597,000 in insurance kickbacks so patients needing urine screenings would be sent to his treatment centers.

A motions hearing on the charge is set for May 19 in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston, according to a spokesman for Attorney General Martha Coakley. Coakley led a grand jury investigation that targeted Kishore. He ran a 30-office chain known as Preventive Medicine Associates Inc.

“The attorney general’s office has yet to bring Kishore’s case to trial; instead continuing the case 11 times and counting,” attorney Harold Jacobi of Lexington said in a written response to the Cape Cod Times on behalf of Kishore. “Dr. Kishore is confident of acquittal and hopes to have his license reinstated on appeal or when he defeats the criminal allegations.”

A website in support of Kishore has been set up at kishoresstory.info. Kishore, an Indian national in the United States as a permanent resident, was ordered to surrender his passport because he is considered a flight risk.