A Los Angeles woman has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison over a $14 million Medicare fraud scheme.

Sophia Shaklian, of Los Angeles, was sentenced Tuesday to 35 months in federal prison for defrauding Medicare out of more than $14 million by submitting fraudulent claims for hospice care and diagnostic testing services that were either unnecessary or not provided at all, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California.

Shaklian was ordered to pay $14,103,043 in restitution after she pleaded guilty in November to one count of healthcare fraud.

She and her co-schemers, from March 2019 to August 2024, used multiple bogus hospice and diagnostic testing providers enrolled with Medicare and submitted fraudulent claims on behalf of companies she owned.

Shaklian, 38, and her fellow schemers used the information of Medicare beneficiaries and checked their eligibility to knowingly and willfully submit fraudulent claims to Medicare on their behalf. 

The beneficiaries did not need nor had ever received the services, and were not familiar with the fraudulent hospice and diagnostic testing providers. Shaklian and her fellow did this with the intent to defraud Medicare into reimbursing the sham providers for those claimed services, according to the Justice Department.

She admitted in her plea agreement that she and her co-schemers submitted fraudulent claims on behalf of the sham providers. Because Shaklian was involved in the billing and was familiar with the amounts Medicare paid to the fraudulent providers on the types of claims submitted in the scheme, she caused Medicare to lose at least $14,103,043.

Co-defendant Alex Alexsanian, 48, pleaded guilty in January to one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, for which he will face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison at his April 28 sentencing hearing.