A federal judge sentenced Anna Vishnevsky, 52, of Valley Village, the former owner of a Studio City medical clinic, to 37months in federal prison for submitting  more than $11.5 million in bills to health care benefit programs for unnecessary – and sometimes nonexistent – sleep studies, primarily for employees of United Parcel Service, Inc., and Costco Wholesale Corp. She also has to pay $2,747,071 in restitution. Vishnevsky, who owned Atlas Diagnostic Services, Inc., pleaded guilty in November 2018 to one count of health care fraud. 

From March 2014 until June 2016, Vishnevsky participated in a scheme to defraud health care benefit plans. Vishnevsky and others working at her direction recruited patients to participate in sleep study testing at Atlas by offering them cash. She also offered them additional cash if they brought in other sleep study participants, including their co-workers and relatives. Vishnevsky recruited patients, knowing that no doctor had prescribed sleep study testing for them and regardless of whether the testing was medically necessary or appropriate. Vishnevsky did not score or interpret the data from the testing or send it to anyone who could score or interpret it, which is necessary for diagnosis and treatment. She submitted insurance claims for sleep study testing performed on the recruited patients, listing physicians that had never treated the patients. She also billed not only for the one night of sleep study testing that the patients had purportedly undergone – regardless of medical necessity – but also for an additional, consecutive night of sleep study testing that was never performed. Vishnevsky submitted more than $11.5 million in fraudulent insurance claims to health care benefit plans. She received about $3 million on those claims, of which $2,747,071 is still outstanding.     

A co-defendant, Eddie Hernandez, 46, of Torrance, pleaded guilty in November 2018 to one count of health care fraud and is serving a 30-month federal prison sentence in this case. Hernandez was a UPS driver who helped Vishnevsky recruit people to participate in the fraudulent sleep studies.