Former Maryland dentist sentenced for stealing more than $8 million from Medicaid

BALTIMORE, Md. (DC News Now) — A judge in Prince George’s County sentenced a former dentist from Montgomery County for stealing millions of dollars from Medicaid.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown said Seyed Hamid Tofigh, 57, of Potomac, Md. received the sentence after Tofigh, who was accused of stealing $8.5 million from the Medicaid program, pleaded guilty to charges on Feb. 6.

The charges against him were:

• Defrauding a State Health Plan, the Medicaid program

• Practicing Dentistry Without a License

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Prosecutors said Tofigh defrauded the program by practicing dentistry without a license on Maryland Medicaid recipients and and using the names, provider numbers, and professional credentials of licensed dentists to submit claims. In the majority of cases, the patients were children.

The attorney general’s office explained that the Maryland Medicaid program is a joint federal-state program that gives health care benefits to people who have low incomes. It added that Tofigh received payments for services that were billed fraudulently under the names of four other providers.

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Some Background

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office said Tofigh had been a licensed dentist in Maryland since September 1994. He and two of his brothers owned several dental practices. By 2015, they separated ownership of the practices. Tofigh retained ownership of Greenbelt Family Dentistry, located at 7500 Hanover Pkwy., Greenbelt, Md. and Rockville Family Dentistry, located at 5806 Hubard Dr., Rockville, Md.

The Maryland Board of Dental Examiners suspended Tofigh’s license to practice dentistry in March 2014 after it received several complaints from Tofigh’s patients. The board found that there was a “substantial likelihood that he posed a risk of harm to public health, safety, and welfare,” according to the attorney general’s office.

The board revoked Tofigh’s license to practice dentistry in February 2015. That was after it found that he kept “consistently incompetent and egregiously deficient” dental records. Additionally, the board said Tofigh gave patients incompetent and substandard treatment, billed for service he didn’t provide, and conducted himself in unprofessional and dishonorable ways.

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The Scheme

Despite his license being revoked, prosecutors said Tofigh continued to own the practices in Greenbelt and Rockville from 2015 through January 2023 and practiced dentistry on Maryland Medicaid recipients. They added that Tofigh stole the identities of other people, forged signatures on Medicaid applications, used aliases to avoid being caught, told his employees to use aliases, and didn’t cooperate with insurance audits.

Prosecutors said when Tofigh wrote notes, he signed them “Dr. T.” which kept things vague so that it could have been any of the Tofigh brothers who signed the notes. Prosecutors said he continued to:

• Bill for services he did not provide

• Deliver substandard care to patients

• Use equipment that was not sanitized properly

• Perform and bill for unnecessary services (including root canals, fillings, and tooth extractions)

• Bully and intimidate patients who questioned him

• Keep very little documentation of services he claimed to have provided

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office summed up the situation by saying: “Tofigh’s practice of dentistry continued to fall below professional standards, resulting in pain, suffering, and infections to children with Maryland Medicaid health insurance.”

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The Money Breakdown

Prosecutors said that from 2015 through 2022, Tofigh submitted claims for payment to Maryland Medicaid using the names, Medicaid provider numbers, and credentials of his twin brother, his younger brother, and his nephew, all of whom are licensed dentists. Tofigh also used the credentials and Medicaid provider number of a former colleague to submit fraudulent claims to the Medicaid program.

The Maryland Attorney General said Tofigh received:

• $416,850 for fraudulent claims filed under his twin’s credentials

• $3,143,975 for fraudulent claims filed under his younger brother’s credentials

• $4,751,127 for fraudulent claims filed under his nephew’s credentials

• $218,950 for fraudulent services filed in two months under a former colleague’s credentials

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The Sentence

Tofigh received a sentence of five years in jail, but the judge suspending all but 78 days. The judge placed Tofigh on 18 months of home detention, with a five-year term of probation for a Medicaid fraud count, and to one year in jail, suspended, followed by a five-year term of probation for practicing dentistry without a license. The sentences are running consecutively.

Tofigh also is to pay $8.5 million in restitution within one year of receiving his sentence. At the time of sentencing, Tofigh had made one $4.5 million payment toward restitution.

Tofigh cannot provide health care services that are either partially or wholly funded by state or federal governments and has to give up his Maryland dental license permanently.

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