A former Lancaster County, Pa., doctor, charged in March 2009 with bilking patients and insurers of $8 million, pleaded guilty in federal court in Harrisburg, Pa., to charges of health care fraud and mail fraud.

Saroj K. Parida, 50, of Manheim Township, Pa., could face up to eight years in prison, according to the Reading Eagle newspaper.

Under terms of the proposed plea arrangement, Parida could be ordered to pay $7.1 million in restitution to Medicaid and several insurance companies by billing them for multiple days of interpreting sleep data over 30 days when only one day was permitted. 

U.S. Senior Judge Sylvia H. Rambo has not set a sentencing date for Parida, who had also been charged with three felony counts of insurance fraud after a nine-month investigation involving the insurance companies and other authorities.

The doctor of newborn infants was accused of bilking Highmark BlueShield, Capital Blue Cross and HealthAmerica out of $2 million in falsely reported claims last year, but the investigation found additional money had been stolen.

A Highmark policyholder had questioned claims in May 2008, to which Parida said it was a billing error he could not control, court records indicate. Highmark then began researching Parida’s other bills and found $600,000 more in fraudulent payments and billings for sleep interpretations prior to patient’s births and after monitoring had stopped, according to published reports.

Capital Blue Cross found another $800,000 in allegedly fraudulent payments from 2005 to 2008, and accused him of falsifying billing records and reporting interpreted data as more comprehensive sleep studies. A subsequent investigation by HealthAmerica found billion of more than $600,000 in similar claims.

An affidavit alleged that Parida had no office or clinic and runs his operation from his home using a pair of aliases as billers.

As part of the plea agreement, Parida may also be required to forfeit $5.7 million seized by authorities from his investment and bank accounts, the newspaper reported.