Features

FBI investigating former Stanford surgeons for fraud

The Associated Press
Saturday September 16, 2000

SAN FRANCISCO – A pair of surgeons affiliated with Stanford University are under investigation by the FBI to determine if they have committed fraud in Medicare billings or fudged accounts of surgical procedures for medical journals. 

The FBI is investigating brothers Camran and Farr Nezhat after the San Francisco Chronicle reported last week that they had allegedly misreported in journal articles written in the early 1990s. 

A doctor interviewed by the FBI earlier this week told the newspaper that the probe’s focus is on how those articles in question may contain information matching that in the Medicare billings under scrutiny. 

The FBI is also apparently curious whether data in the articles was fabricated in a way that may have drawn patients across state lines for treatment. 

An attorney for the Nezhat brothers was unaware of the FBI investigation and declined further comment. 

The Nezhats arrived in Palo Alto in 1993 and worked with several Stanford surgeons. However, the brothers’ account of several ovarian cancer operations was one of several journal articles being audited by Stanford for accuracy.