An Alabama doctor has been sentenced to five years in prison in a health care fraud case.

WKRG-TV reports U.S. District Judge Kristi Dubose sentenced Dr. Rassan Tarabein, of Daphne, Friday and ordered him to pay $15 million in restitution.The sentence also includes a year of probation.

Last year Tarabein pleaded guilty to charges of health care fraud and unlawfully distributing a controlled substance.

In his plea agreement, Tarabein admitted that from around 2004 to May 2017, he ran an insurance scam in which he induced patients to visit his clinic so that he could bill health care benefit programs for medically unnecessary tests and procedures.

The federal sentence will run concurrently to his state sentence. Sentencing, in that case, is set for June 28 in Montgomery.

(Associated Press, copyright 2018)

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