A nursing home whistleblower who prevailed in a $45 million case against the facilities’ owners lost his appeal when the government rejected his argument that the judgment wasn’t big enough. 

Whistleblower Trilochan “Bobby” Singh was the vice president of operations and chief operating officer of Paksn Inc., for seven years, during which time the government alleged the company’s owners engaged in multiple kickback schemes to defraud Medicare and Medicaid. Singh’s objection to the settlement was rejected by US District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr., for the Central District of California on Nov. 3 who said Singh lacked merit. 

“In sum, [Singh] has neither identified any assets that the government overlooked nor shown that the government’s assessment of Defendants’ ability to pay was erroneous,” Blumenfeld wrote. “His objection essentially amounts to speculation that Defendants have been untruthful, and that the government has not done enough to root out assets that Defendants may have hidden.”

While acknowledging that the defendants — Antony and Prema Thekkek — were at least somewhat untruthful, Blumenfeld’s decision discussed the steps taken by a certified public accountant with more than 39 years’ experience of financial analysis and auditing experience to examine the Thekkek’s records and determine how much they could afford as the settlement. 

Blumenfeld also noted that Singh did not present any kind of proof to back up his claim that the Thekkeks were hiding resources. The ruling said Singh produced “partial records” that he claimed showed that Thekkek held interests in other facilities that had “millions of dollars in revenue” that the US Department of Justice failed to consider. But Blumenfeld noted that the documents are not the type the DOJ would use to determine a defendant’s repayment ability. 

“In sum, Relator has neither identified any assets that the government overlooked nor shown that the government’s assessment of Defendants’ ability to pay was erroneous,” Blumenfeld wrote, before denying Singh’s objection and approving the settlement. 

Singh filed a qui tam lawsuit in December 2015, and the government took over the case in June 2021. The Thekkeks were charged with submitting false claims from seven nursing homes they owned and operated in California: Bay Point Healthcare Center, Gateway Care & Rehabilitation Center, Hayward Convalescent Hospital, Hilltop Care & Rehabilitation Center, Martinez Convalescent Hospital, Park Central Care & Rehabilitation Hospital, and Yuba Skilled Nursing Center. 

The case centered around agreements the Thekkeks had with physicians to act as medical directors and in other roles at the facilities. In reality, the doctors were accepting kickbacks for facility referrals. 

“When entering into physician contracts, Defendants and the physicians did not intend that the physicians would spend much, if any, time performing such services,” the Department of Justice wrote in the original charging documents against the Thekkeks. “And, during the course of these physician services arrangements, the physicians, in fact, spent little-to-no time performing the listed services. The design of these contracts was not for Defendants to pay the physicians a market rate for lawful services rendered, but rather as a vehicle for the payment of kickbacks (in the form of a purported contractual stipend) to induce patient referrals.”

The documents detail the hundreds of thousands of dollars the Thekkeks paid to physicians for patient referrals to the various facilities.