Riverhead doctor sentenced in Medicare fraud kickback scheme

Dr. Vishnudat Seodat, a physician who practiced family medicine in Riverhead for most of his 36-year career, has been sentenced in federal court in Boston for receiving kickbacks in exchange for ordering medically unnecessary brain scans.

Seodat, 76, of Mattituck, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton on Dec. 17, 2025 to two years of supervised release, one year of which will be served in home confinement, prosecutors said in a press release. 

Seodat was also ordered to pay a fine of $50,000, forfeiture in the amount of $52,100 and $342,876 in restitution. 

Seodat pleaded guilty in December 2024 to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. 

Seodat admitted in the plea agreement that between June 2013 and June 2019, he falsified patient diagnoses when ordering medically unnecessary brain ultrasound tests in exchange for cash kickbacks from the imaging company of $100 per test, so that federal health care programs, including Medicare would pay for the tests.

Seodat signed 521 prescriptions and orders for the ultrasound tests, called transcranial Doppler ultrasounds, in which he or the co-conspirator diagnostic imaging company indicated that a given patient had a medical condition requiring the ultrasound test, even though the doctor had not and did not diagnose the patients with it, according to the plea agreement. 

Using these prescriptions and orders, the diagnostics company fraudulently billed Medicare and private insurance companies approximately $1,005,455, according to the document, and was paid approximately $347,165 for these fraudulent claims. In total, Seodat received approximately $52,100 in cash kickback payments from the company or the company manager.

The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.