Bloomingdale doctor sent to prison for fraud

A Bloomingdale doctor was sentenced Thursday to two years in federal prison for fraudulently diagnosing patients, allowing Medicare to wrongly be billed for millions of dollars in unnecessary treatment, officials said.

Dr. Arthur Davida, 62, pleaded guilty last year to a health care fraud charge for decisions he made as an employee and part-owner of Bloomingdale-based Home Care Physicians Inc., according to the U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of Illinois.

From 2010 to 2013, he lied about at least 20 percent of the patients he labeled as confined to the home.

Doing so allowed home-health agencies to bill Medicare for treatment that Davida knew was unnecessary.

U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp Jr. described the crime as a "very serious offense."