Violetta Mailyan, California doctor convicted of $45M Medicare fraud of bogus Botox Injections which funded lavish lifestyle, luxury vacations, art and even $12K crossbow.
So brazen were one California doctor’s Medicare fraudulent claims one wonders if she realized she’d eventually be caught, or did she? Which is to wonder how pernicious is scamming in the medical industry?
A Los Angeles-area Botox doctor has been convicted of submitting more than $45 million in fraudulent Medicare claims.
Violetta Mailyan, 45, of Glendale, CA., was convicted on nine counts of wire fraud and three counts of obstruction of a criminal investigation of a health care offense for her scheme to fraudulently bill Medicare for Botox injections she never gave, according to the Department of Justice.
6 year ongoing $45M Medicare fraud
Prosecutors claimed in their indictment last year that Mailyan billed for the medically unnecessary injections at her office, Healthy Way Medical Center, from January 2019 through August 2025 before the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Health Care Fraud Section’s Data Analytics Team started doing the math and noticed things were off, way off…
The DOJ discovered that Mailyan had been paid more by Medicare for Botox injections than any other doctor in the entire United States.
In total, Mailyan was paid more than $24 million from the federal program over the course of four years – six times the amount received by the next highest group of doctors, all of whom were neurologists.
Mailyan is alleged to have then used the ill gotten funds to take lavish vacations and purchase luxury collectibles – including a $3,000 painting of Ludwig I, crown prince of Bavaria, and $12,000 for a 17th-century crossbow.
‘Violetta Mailyan falsely diagnosed patients, fraudulently billed Medicare for Botox injections while she was actually on lavish vacations and tried to trick federal agents with fake records,’ stated Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald, of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division.
‘The Fraud Division’s data-driven approach shines a light on fraud schemes across the country, ensuring that no doctor can engage in these brazen schemes to steal taxpayer dollars,’ he added.
In addition to scheming to defraud Medicare, Mailyan altered medical records in an attempt to mislead investigators, authorities said.
California Botox doctor imagined she was invincible
She owned and operated the Healthy Way Medical Center, which billed Medicare for Botox injections that were medically unnecessary and never actually provided.
This included billing for injections on dates when Mailyan was traveling to Cabo, Mexico; Maui, Hawaii; Las Vegas; Pennsylvania; and New York.
Furthermore, some of the injections allegedly took place on dates when the clinic was closed, or when one patient who supposedly received the treatment was actually incarcerated in federal prison.
Typically, Medicare reimburses medical providers for Botox injections only when they are deemed necessary to treat documented cases of chronic migraines.
However, Mailyan billed and received payments for thousands of injections that were either never provided, administered solely for cosmetic purposes, or given to patients whose primary care physicians had not referred them for chronic migraine treatment according to FOX News.
A regard of the fraudulent doctor’s social media accounts reveal her describing herself as a ‘BOTOX FILLER NONSURGICAL NOSE COSMETIC DOCTOR.’
Wrote the doctor in one Facebook post, ‘Missing the days of no mask, no fear, AND LIPSTICK, when I’m in my zone, I am creating, I’m imagining and I’m invincible!’
Prosecutors said that in an effort to conceal the fraud, she fabricated patient medical records—including patient consent forms—to make it appear as if patients received migraine treatments in her office.
Mailyan is accused of backdating some claims to bill for injections before the patients had even contacted her clinic to request an appointment.
Mailyan faces up to 20 years in prison for each count of wire fraud and five years in prison for each count of obstruction.
A sentencing date has not yet been set.
