A status conference in the case has been set for Jan. 6 at 1:30 p.m. in Denver.
Jahani had been scheduled to appear Tuesday in Grand Junction before Magistrate Judge Kathleen Tafoya, but on Monday, Tafoya changed the hearing to Denver.
Jahani and his employee, Dr. Eric Peper, pleaded not guilty in September to about 70 charges each, including health care fraud resulting in death, money laundering and dispensing of controlled substances.
The hearing Tuesday concerned the federal prosecutor’s motion to review or revoke conditions for release of Jahani. The hearing was originally set for Oct. 13.
Jahani, 49, started Urgent Care clinics in 2005 in Montrose, Grand Junction and Delta, and Peper, 53, worked in the Delta and Grand Junction offices.
Both men were indicted by a federal grand jury on Aug. 3 and were arrested at their respective residences in Florida and Texas.
According to the indictment, between Jan. 1, 2006 and April 30, 2010, Jahani and Peper defrauded Medicaid and Medicare and commercial health plans “by means of material false and fraudulent pretenses….”
U.S. Attorney John Walsh of the District of Colorado stated that “Jahani and Peper allegedly prescribed controlled substances to patients without determining a sufficient medical necessity for the prescription to patients in a manner which was inconsistent with the usual course or professional practice and for other than legitimate medical purposes.”
The press release goes on to state that the doctors had patients fill prescriptions at “various pharmacies,” allowing the pharmacies to file claims and “obtain reimbursement for those prescriptions from health care benefit programs.”
The two men also falsified medical records, Walsh claimed, using a practice known as “upcoding” to get more money from Medicare and Medicaid, including charging for services not rendered, even after a patient’s death. Walsh said the two had a “scheme” to cause patients “…to abuse, misuse, and become addicted to the controlled substances.”
As a result of these practices, the indictment claims that four people died.
One of them was Kelly Gwinn, who died at the age of 39 on July 3, 2008, according to court documents. Her husband, David Gwinn, filed suit against Jahani earlier this year in which he alleges that Jahani prescribed an excessive amount of drugs for his wife that resulted in her death. An autopsy showed that Kelly Gwinn had “near toxic/fatal levels of Fentanyil and Citalopram in her system at the time of her death” and the cause of death was polydrug overdose.
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