BOSTON
Prosecutors say a drug treatment specialist put administrators of sober-housing programs on his company’s payroll to hide the fact that he was bribing them to send drug-testing work to his labs.
In a court document released after Dr. Punyamurtula Kishore’s arraignment in Suffolk Superior Court on Thursday on Medicaid fraud charges, prosecutors allege that Kishore bribed owners and employees of eight sober-housing programs to send urine-screening work to him. He was then reimbursed $3.8 million by Medicaid for the lab work.
Kishore’s company, Preventive Medicine Associates, operated Weymouth Medical Practice on Washington Street, Quincy International Health Center on Hancock Street and more than two-dozen other clinics around the state. One of the sober-house programs that allegedly received kickbacks from Kishore has operated in Quincy and Randolph, and another had a program in Brockton, and one operated in Norton.
In some cases, Kishore allegedly put program administrators on the payroll of his company or his charity, the National Library of Addictions, even though they did little or no work for him, Assistant Attorney General Nancy Maroney wrote in the prosecution’s outline of the allegations.
In other cases, Kishore said the payments were to cover fees for renting space at the sober houses to collect urine samples or see patients, according to the document.
Kishore filed more than 53,000 claims for reimbursement for 864 patients at the eight sober houses between July 2006 and May 2011, according to the document.
A professional spokeswoman representing Kishore said the 61-year-old doctor denies the allegations.
“The charges against Dr. Kishore are completely without merit and inconsistent with his three decades of solid medical practice in support of individuals with addiction issues,” said Diana Pisciotta, who works for the Boston public relations firm Denterlein. “Dr. Kishore has in no way inappropriately benefited from his patient-care work.”
Kishore is charged with eight counts each of Medicaid kickbacks and making false Medicaid claims.
He was ordered held on $150,000 bail after his arraignment Thursday, but he planned to ask a judge to lower the amount today, said Brad Puffer, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office.
A Malden District Court judge ordered Kishore held on $150,000 bail after he was arrested last month on one charge of paying kickbacks. A Middlesex Superior Court judge allowed him released on personal recognizance a day later, provided he surrender his passport and wear a GPS tracking bracelet.
He was indicted on additional charges last week in Suffolk County.
Several of Kishore’s clinics closed in recent months. The remaining ones closed abruptly following his arrest giving little or no notice to patients or employees, some of whom said they hadn’t been paid for weeks.
The clinics specialized in treating opiate addiction using a drug called Vivitrol marketed as a non-addictive alternative to methadone or Suboxone.
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