An Anchorage medical doctor and her husband are facing federal charges accusing them of more than $10 million in health care fraud, tax evasion and instances of injecting patients without specific consent.
Dr. Claribel Kohchet Chua Tan, a rheumatologist, and her husband, Daniel Tan Tan, were indicted by a federal grand jury last week. Rheumatologists treat diseases of the joints, soft tissue and connective tissues. Daniel Tan worked with his wife at her clinic, located in a medical office building off Lake Otis Parkway and Tudor Road.
Dr. Tan was first licensed to practice in Alaska in 2005. The indictment accuses the couple of executing a fraud scheme out of the clinic over a 13-year period from 2010 until last year.
Federal prosecutors say the couple submitted false claims that misrepresented the type and dosage of medication as well as the scope of medical services they provided. They are also accused of deceiving patients about the necessity of receiving medications at the clinic.
The couple obtained an estimated $10.3 million in claims involving some 140 health care benefit plans from Aetna to TRICARE, according to a government filing requesting special conditions of release. Federal officials say they have seized roughly $8.5 million from the couple’s accounts.
The indictment also accuses Dr. Tan of injecting an estimated 400 patients who were deceived “regarding the identity, quantity, and other material facts regarding substances that she injected into their bodies, and administered medications to which patients did not consent.”
Federal prosecutors say video made with patient consent shows Tan on multiple occasions injecting “a completely different medication” from what she said she administered. One example in the documents says Tan administered a dose of Cimzia, used to treat conditions including Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis, but billed for twice that amount.
The Tans or Daniel Tan also evaded income taxes for 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 by providing false information to their tax preparer, federal prosecutors say. The indictment accuses the couple of not filing any returns at all for 2018 through 2021.
Attorneys for Claribel and Daniel Tan declined to comment on the specific allegations of the federal case. But Steven Wells, who is representing Daniel Tan, said his client is presumed to be not guilty and he is looking forward to seeing the evidence in the case.
Wells, asked about the apparent severity of the charges, said five years have passed since the investigation began in 2019.
“Which again, makes me wonder why the government, if they really thought this was going on, they didn’t intervene sooner?” he said Tuesday.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the case beyond what’s available in the public docket.
The state’s professional licensing division that staffs Alaska’s State Medical Board is aware of the federal indictment, according to the special conditions of release document. Dr. Tan refused offers in March and this month to voluntarily surrender or suspend her medical license, the document said. A division official said they expect to present the indictment to a reviewing medical board member, it said.
Both Tans, briefly held at the federal courthouse Monday, were released on conditions they surrender their passports, undergo supervision by a federal probation officer, and not leave Alaska without permission. U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott A. Oravec also ordered Dr. Tan not to perform injections on “any other person” as a physician or submit claims to health care benefit programs.
Prosecutors cited concerns the Tans might flee to the Philippines, where they reportedly have a home, according to a federal agent’s sworn affidavit in support of a seizure warrant. Wells said the couple is not a flight risk.
“This has been going on for five years,” he said. “They’ve known about it, they haven’t fled, they’ve had an attorney, they’ve been talking to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”