| Board fines Clay doctor $10,000 for overbilling
By Andrew Clevenger
www.wvgazette.com
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - The West Virginia Board of Medicine has fined a Clay doctor $10,000 for reportedly engaging in wrongful billing practices that resulted in Mountain State Blue Cross Blue Shield overpaying him more than $182,000.
Last week, Sharooz Saheb Jamie entered a consent order agreeing to the fine. The board also suspended his license for one year, but agreed to hold off on imposing the suspension if Jamie completes a continuing medical education course on billing and coding within a year and pays the fine within 60 days.
In 2004, Mountain State, now doing business as Highmark West Virginia, Inc., filed a lawsuit in Wood County Circuit Court against Jamie alleging that he had overbilled for blood tests he performed in 2003 and 2004.
Jamie denied the allegations, claiming that coding discrepancies were caused by a lack of software in his office and inconsistent instructions from Mountain State. After a ruling against him, Jamie appealed the case to the state Supreme Court, which reversed part of the ruling in November 2007.
Ultimately, the case was resolved in Mountain State's favor, and in December 2008 Wood County Circuit Judge J.D. Beane ordered Jamie to pay Mountain State $182,047.86 in damages plus $94,060.07 in interest.
Jamie, a former mayor of Clay, told The Charleston Gazette in January 2009 that he hadn't done anything wrong and that Mountain State owed him money.
"This is an injustice," he said at the time. "There's no sense to it at all."
Read Dr. Sharooz Saheb Jamie's consent order here
He also said: "My job is seeing the patient. I have nothing to do with billing. I have no idea how they came up with these allegations against me."
The board's order states that there is probable cause to substantiate charges against Jamie for submitting false reports, making false representations in the practice of medicine and engaging in dishonorable, unethical or unprofessional conduct.
Jamie's ex-wife, Shida S. Jamie, owns and operates Golden Heart In Home Care, LLC, a health-care company that tried to buy the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department's home-health division in January 2010. The deal fell through after the company didn't come up with the $400,000 it bid.
Months later, federal agents raided Golden Heart's St. Albans headquarters and branch offices in Clay and Montgomery amid allegations that the company illegally employed dangerous felons as in-home caregivers and may have submitted improper bills to Medicaid.
Federal prosecutors filed a civil lawsuit and froze assets belonging to Shida Jamie and her son, James S. "Jimmy" Jamie, who had claimed that he made $2.2 million as a health-care executive with Golden Heart. Jimmy Jamie was later dropped from the federal lawsuit after he admitted in a sworn statement that he had lied about his income, assets and role in the company, among other things.
Federal prosecutors are trying to seize two properties belonging to Shida Jamie, including her Parkwood Road home in Charleston and a 1.3-acre lot on Graff Lane in Quarry Creek.
No criminal charges have been filed against Shida Jamie, although she was issued a target letter in June, indicating that she could face criminal charges stemming from the probe.
In October, federal prosecutors agreed to put the civil case against Shida Jamie on hold until the criminal investigation is resolved.
Reach Andrew Clevenger at aclevenger@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1723.
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