Dr. Anthony Valdez, a physician who rain pain management clinics in San Antonio and El Paso, Texas was sentenced January 6, 2012, to twenty-five years in prison for a 42 million dollar health care fraud scheme, as reported in the San Antonio Express News on January 7, 2012.

Dr. Valdez was found guilty of submitting false claims to Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE and the Texas Worker’s Compensation Commission between January 2001 and December 2009 for work that was never done or not reimbursable.

The conviction stems from a whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2002 that claimed Valdez’s Institute of Pain Management clinics located in the two Texas cities fraudulently performed injection procedures that were not covered by the government health care programs, but were billing them as procedures that were reimbursable.

Valdez has lost his license to practice medicine, the government has seized most of his property and the court handed down a monetary judgement against Valdez for 9.7 million dollars.