Haider Ali Khan, patriarch of the now-defunct Quality Health Plans Inc., has been arrested and charged with more than a dozen felonies involving health-insurance fraud, state officials said.
Khan, who was president of the Tampa-based Medicare plan before it closed, turned himself in to Leon County Jail officials on April 3 and was released on $150,000 bond, according to the state Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR). His arrest came 20 months after that of his son and daughter, both of whom were also executives in the company.
QHP, founded in 2003, was at one time judged the number-one Medicare plan in Pasco and Hernando counties. It was declared insolvent in mid-November 2011, and shut down in December 2011.
Its 10,165 Florida members were returned to traditional Medicare (QHP also had several thousand members in New York).
QHP's troubles became visible in 2010, as Hernando Today reported a year later, when the company was suspended from the federal Medicare program and fined nearly $600,000. In 2011, court records would show the fine followed a rash of member complaints about billing glitches, improper denials and delays of medication, and failure to provide an adequate appeals and grievance process.
Khan's daughter Sabiha Haider Khan, who was CEO, and son Nazeer Haider Khan, vice president, were charged in August 2012 with felony insurance fraud, as OIR reported at the time. The Leon County State Attorney's Office said both are still out on bond, awaiting a hearing April 23.
Both Haider and Nazeer Khan are medical doctors with clear and active Florida licenses and no pending complaints, according to the state Department of Health website.
The elder Khan was not charged then because his son and daughter were the ones who turned over misleading financial documents to the Office of Insurance Regulation, Florida's Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater said at the time. He said the younger Khans concealed the fact that a $5 million asset was collateral for a loan at Herald National Bank in New York.
According to OIR Communications Director Harvey Bennett, the elder Khan's arrest came after the insurance agency discovered that he had signed documents that fraudulently said the company had a $10 million bank account. That account, Bennett said, was "non-existent."
Company investors are suing the Khans to recover lost funds. Others who are owed money are medical providers who were never paid for services.
--Health News Florida is part of WUSF Public Media. Contact Editor Carol Gentry at 813-974-8629 (desk) or e-mail at cgentry@wusf.org. For more health news, visit HealthNewsFlorida.org.
