Dr. Sanjeev Kumar, of Indian origin, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for medical malpractice in Tennessee.
Indian-origin gynecologist Sanjeev Kumar has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of adulterating medical devices and committing health fraud. US Attorney General Dr. Michael Dunavant There is no adequate punishment for what Dr. Kumar, a Tennessee doctor, did for years, but a 20-year sentence would send a strong message.
In January, Dr. Kumar was convicted of 18 counts of medical device fraud, 16 counts of medical device misbranding, and 6 counts of health care fraud.Dr. Kumar used the same hysteroscope on several women’s vaginasKumar, a Mayo Clinic-trained gynecologic oncologist who directs Poplar Avenue Clinic, a women’s health clinic in Memphis, Tennessee, has used the same hysteroscope on several women.“Hysteroscopy with biopsy is an in-office procedure where a hysteroscope is inserted into the vagina, advanced through the cervix, and into the uterus.
A mask or tube is then inserted through the hysteroscope to take a sample of the uterine lining. This procedure is used to diagnose endometrial cancer. The US Food and Drug Administration has approved several single-use hysteroscopes and grippers, as well as reusable hysteroscopes to complete these procedures.
Single-use devices were to be used once and then disposed of. “To properly decontaminate devices that had been decontaminated for reprocessing, Kumar had to strictly follow the manufacturer’s instructions,” the Justice Department document said.
“Komar routinely failed to subject reusable devices to critical reprocessing steps between patient uses, compromising patient safety. Single-use devices, even if properly reprocessed, should have been labeled as such, and Kumar did not classify them. Kumar used counterfeit medical devices in more than 15,000 hysteroscopies with biopsy procedures for Medicare and Medicaid patients between September 2019 and April 2024.” He said.But even though he wasn’t using the new hysteroscope, he continued to pay his bills. “Kumar paid more than $41 million for hysteroscopy with biopsy procedures between September 2019 and April 2024. He received more than $4.8 million for this procedure from Medicare and Medicaid alone. This amount does not include any hysteroscopy with biopsy procedures performed on patients with private health care insurance,” the court document said.“This defendant used his medical license to target a vulnerable group of women seeking treatment in highly personal and intimate proceedings,” Dunavant said. “He was motivated by greed, ignored clear medical risks, and caused significant physical and psychological harm to the patient victims. There is no adequate sentence to achieve justice in this horrific case, but we hope this 20-year prison sentence will send a strong message of deterrence while holding Kumar accountable for his crimes.”During the trial, Dr. Kumar defended what he did and said that he disinfected those devices, but the government did not like the way he cleaned those devices even though the process was approved by the CDC. Many other doctors perform the same disinfection methods, the defense said, adding that gas sterilization methods could not be performed in a doctor’s room and that Dr. Kumar used a different, higher-level disinfection.
