Rockville Woman Defrauded Medicaid While Working At D.C. Dental Office: U.S. Attorney

ROCKVILLE, MD — A Rockville woman has been sentenced to a year in prison after pleading guilty to defrauding Washington, D.C.'s Medicaid system.

Mahsa Azimirad, 41, worked at Universal Smiles, a Northwest D.C. dental practice, as an office manager. Bilal Ahmed was the dentist who ran the practice.

"Through Universal Smiles, she and Ahmed engaged in a scheme to enrich themselves by defrauding D.C. Medicaid, a health care benefits program jointly funded by the federal government and the District of Columbia to provide health care services to residents who meet the income qualifying requirements," the U.S. Attorney's office in D.C. said.

Azimirad was indicted along with Ahmed and was accused of billing Medicaid $5.4 million for provisional crowns between Aug. 9, 2012 and Feb. 26, 2014, but a "significant number" of the crowns were not actually used for patients. Azimirad got $813,184 from those billings, the U.S. Attorney's office in D.C. said.

She pleaded guilty this May, and has been ordered to pay back the full amount she stole in addition her prison sentence.

The dentist at the practice, Bilal Ahmed, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting patients and staff in 2017 and was sentenced to 16.5 years in prison. He is serving that sentence and this additional fraud sentence concurrently.