Dr. Sonny Saggar, who owns multiple urgent care centers across the area, plus a clinic called St. Louis General Hospital, was arrested by federal agents at his home on Thursday for health care fraud.
KMOX had received a tip about an FBI raid at the home of the owner of Downtown Urgent Care and Creve Coeur Urgent Care, both now branded "24/7 Healthcare." Dr. Saggar was also once the short-lived CEO of St. Alexius Hospital, now South City Hospital.
According to the federal indictment, Dr. Saggar and his office manager were billing Medicare and Medicaid for services performed by unlicensed and unsupervised assistant physicians, or APs. These are medical school graduates who have not completed a residency and cannot practice medicine on their own.
Dr. Saggar allegedly recruited physicians to sign blank forms to pretend they were supervising the APs, but they never did. He also is accused of misleading the government about the location of his Creve Coeur clinic, which is not in a medically underserved area as required by law.
"Dr. Saggar promoted SLGH as a 'stepping stone' for medical school graduates who had been unable to secure a residency and were ineligible to obtain a standard license to practice medicine," says a news release from the U.S. Attorney's office. "The APs often did not receive any training from their supervising physicians" and were actually discouraged from asking for assistance from their purported collaborating physicians.
Dr. Saggar and his office manager, Renita Barringer, are charged with conspiracy and making false statements. They pleaded not guilty in court on Thursday.
