North Carolina Psychologist Malik Muhammad Jailed 4 Years for Medicaid Fraud

February 3, 2022

A clinical psychologist from North Carolina has been sentenced to prison for defrauding Virginia Medicaid.

According to a release, 46-year-old Dr. Malik Muhammad was sentenced to more than four years behind bars.

He was accused of wrongfully obtaining more than $544,000 by creating false diagnoses and medical records for Medicaid recipients, most of whom were minors, and falsely representing to Medicaid that he was providing mental health services to these recipients.

Court documents show Muhammad got identifying information of Medicaid recipients from a co-conspirator and used it to bill Virginia Medicaid for outpatient psychotherapy that was not actually taking place.

Muhammad also hired a co-conspirator to write patient medical records as if he has been performing actual therapy and to create inapplicable diagnoses to give the appearance of treatment. These diagnoses included depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The victims did now know about the false diagnoses that had been invented and applied to them.

Source: “North Carolina psychologist sentenced for defrauding Virginia Medicaid,” CBS-19 News (Charlottesville, VA), Feb. 1, 2022, URL: https://www.cbs19news.com/story/45790634/north-carolina-psychologist-sentenced-for-defrauding-virginia-medicaid