Bay City Surgeon Sentenced to 80 Months in Prison for Health Care Fraud

A Bay City vascular surgeon who pleaded guilty to health care fraud last year has been sentenced to 80 months in prison and ordered to pay over $60 million.

The Department of Justice says Vasso Godiali was sentenced on May 3rd after admitting to causing $14,473,000 in damages to the federal government and defrauding Medicare, Medicaid, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan of $19.5 million.

Beginning in 2009, Godiali began billing health insurance providers for procedures like thrombectomies and vascular stent placements that he never performed. The DOJ says Godiali provided false medical documents to justify those billings. In addition to paying back the money he fraudulently gained,

Godiali was ordered to pay up to $43,419,000 dollars to resolve civil allegations due to violations of the False Claims Act. Nearly $40 million dollars of that will be covered by money seized from his accounts in a civil forfeiture case.