‘Purported consultations’: Feds say Delaware doctor ordered $1.7M of genetic tests for cancer but never saw patients

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The doctor in Delaware had never treated, examined, met or even communicated with the 57-year-old woman who lived in Louisiana.

The physician did try to reach the woman by phone for a telehealth consult. The doctor called three times, but ultimately learned it was the wrong number.

That failure to connect didn’t stop Dr. Shayasta Mufti from ordering a comprehensive battery of genetic tests to help determine the woman’s risk of contracting cancer, federal prosecutors allege in court papers.

The rationale for the expensive testing, according to Mufti’s “physician encounter note,” was that the woman’s sister and grandmother had breast cancer.

“Hence, patient would like to be informed of any further risk(s) to themselves and/or family members by understanding their genetic composition,” court documents say.

The tests were done and Medicare, the government’s health program for older Americans and some people with disabilities, reimbursed the lab $4,980.

But Mufti never reviewed the test results or followed up with the woman who lived 1,300 miles from her doctor’s office near Newark, Delaware.

In all, during an eight-month period in 2019, Mufti is accused of ordering “medically unnecessary genetic testing” for 103 people after “purported consultations” with people who were never her patients, according to the civil complaint filed last month by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware.

Her illegal actions led to Medicare being billed $1.7 million and paying out $565,000 because of “the false and fraudulent genetic testing orders and supporting documentation that Dr. Mufti created or caused to be created,’’ the complaint alleges.

The government’s accusation that Mufti violated the federal False Claims Act was filed in late June in U.S. District Court in Wilmington. She could face substantial fines, if found liable.

Three-quarters of the genetic tests that Mufti allegedly participated in ordering were done by Landmark Diagnostics, a laboratory based in Houston.

In 2022, Landmark’s owner pleaded guilty in federal court to health care fraud, taking kickbacks and money laundering in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida. Daniel Hurt is now serving a 10-year prison sentence for orchestrating the scheme that ripped off Medicare and other insurers of tens of millions of dollars for bogus genetic testing for cancer.

Multiple attempts by WHYY News to reach Mufti were not successful. Her attorney, Adam Balick, would not comment. “We don’t have anything to say about this case outside the courtroom,’’ Balick wrote in an email.

Mufti, who is a board certified Delaware internist, says on her Linkedin profile that she is a “hospitalist at ChristianaCare Health System.”

But Bill Schmitt, a ChristianaCare spokesman, said Mufti previously was once a “casual” provider who wasn’t ever on staff, but “sometimes worked shifts when ChristianaCare needed additional hospitalist support.”

Schmitt stressed that the accusations against Mufti did not involve any work she did for ChristianaCare, the largest health care system in Delaware.

The case is part of the federal government’s 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown. The ongoing effort has led to criminal and civil charges, as well as settlements, against hundreds of medical professionals across the country.

Besides Mufti, one other case involved a Delaware medical provider.

Authorities said nurse practitioner Sandra Jackson, who now lives in Florida, has agreed to pay the government $38,000 to resolve allegations that she violated the False Claims Act by ordering genetic tests and equipment for more than 300 Medicare recipients she also never treated, evaluated or met personally.

Instead, Jackson logged on to a telehealth provider’s online portal that contained information on patients, including their medical history. That data was used to generate orders for tests and equipment for them, which Jackson “subsequently reviewed and electronically signed, sometimes within only a few seconds,” according to a statement of facts in the settlement Jackson signed.

Medicare paid $521,792 for those orders, the settlement with Jackson said.

Dylan Steinberg, the acting U.S. attorney for Delaware, said his office and others across the country take health care fraud seriously.

“The integrity of our federal healthcare programs, including Medicare, relies on medical providers adhering to professional standards of care and billing accurately for services that are medically necessary for their patients,” Steinberg said in a written statement. “We will continue to work tirelessly with our federal partners to hold accountable those who exploit programs designed to help our most vulnerable citizens and ensure that services are provided based on medical need, not financial gain.”

‘Medicare would not have paid claims if it had known the truth’

The case against Mufti involved her work for the telemedicine company MySpecialistMD, the federal complaint said.

She was paid $25 for each “purported consultation,’’ authorities said, and with other fees received a total of $15,000 from MySpecialistMD from April to November 2019.

Prosecutors outlined in detail, however, just how Mufti allegedly violated federal law.

As an enrolled Medicare provider, Mufti had agreed to comply with the program’s laws, regulations and program instructions, the complaint said.

That meant she would “not knowingly present or cause to be presented a false or fraudulent claim for payment by Medicare, and will not submit claims with deliberate ignorance or reckless disregard of their truth or falsity,” the complaint said.

Instead, that’s exactly what she did, prosecutors wrote, alleging that Mufti only had “brief, if any” communications with the 103 people for whom she ordered the genetic tests.

“She was not their treating physician, they were not her patients, she had never examined or evaluated them, and she had never consulted with them or had only brief telemedicine interactions before ordering testing,” the complaint said. “Likewise, Dr. Mufti knew that she did not review their test results, had no intention to use the results to manage any of their medical conditions, and, indeed, was unaware whether the tests had even been performed.”

But she filled out paperwork, some of which generated other documentation bearing her electronic signature, that the 103 Medicare beneficiaries were her “patients,” the tests were medically necessary and she would use them to make treatment decisions and pursue further care, the complaint said.

“In fact, Dr. Mufti knew, recklessly disregarded, or was deliberately ignorant of the fact that she was not authorized to order genetic testing for any of the beneficiaries,” the complaint said.

The complaint highlighted a handful of her cases, including the 57-year-old Louisiana woman and a 71-year-old woman who lived in western Pennsylvania near the Ohio border.

With the Pennsylvania woman, Mufti attested that she had performed a medical consultation, the woman was her patient, the evaluation took place on July 24, 2019, the genetic testing was needed to assess her disease risks and results would be used to “to determine the patient’s medical management and treatment decision,” the complaint said.

Mufti had no idea, however, if the woman “would even be provided with the results of the genetic testing,” the complaint said.

The goal was to bamboozle the federal government, the complaint said, because “Medicare would not and could not have paid these claims if it had known the truth.”

But as in the other cases, there was sufficient official documentation for the government to write a big check, the complaint said.

For that unnecessary test on the Pennsylvania woman, the amount paid was $7,569, the complaint said.

Steinberg suggested that Mufti made a mockery of the checks and balances in the Medicare system that are critical in providing care to older and disabled Americans.

“Dr. Mufti’s actions violated these critical safeguards, putting taxpayer dollars at risk, draining funds from vital health care programs, and undermining the trust placed in health care professionals,” the prosecutor said.