Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
An Anchorage doctor was sentenced yesterday to six and a half years in prison and three years of supervised release for executing a $12.5 million health care fraud scheme and evading over $4 million in taxes on the profits of that 15-year scheme. Her husband and co-defendant was sentenced to three years of probation, with two years to be served in home confinement.
According to court documents and statements made in court, Dr. Claribel Tan, 61, and her husband, Daniel Tan, 70, operated a rheumatology medical clinic in Anchorage starting in 2005. Claribel Tan specialized in the treatment of autoimmune and musculoskeletal diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis and psoriatic arthritis, and she prescribed injectable medications to treat those conditions. Although these conditions are often chronic, degenerative and irreversible, certain medicines can slow down or arrest their progression. Daniel Tan assisted as an officer manager at the clinic.
Beginning in 2009 and continuing through 2024, the Tans deceived patients about the medications Claribel Tan administered through injections and then fraudulently billed health insurance plans for reimbursement of medications that the Tans did not purchase. Claribel Tan routinely and surreptitiously injected patients with free samples, expired medications and medications other than those prescribed. The Tans then knowingly billed insurance plans as if she had provided a proper injection to each patient. Specifically, the Tans claimed to have administered 4,829 units of the medications to patients, and billed the insurance plans for that amount, despite only purchasing 369 units of medication.
Daniel Tan helped execute the scheme by ordering insufficient medication for the clinic and creating and submitting fraudulent insurance claims. The Tans also made false statements about the length of Claribel Tan’s office visits with her patients and submitted fraudulent claims to insurance plans for services she never provided. In addition to creating significant health risks for the patients, the Tans’ fraud scheme caused a loss of over $12.5 to more than 10 insurance plans.
The Tans also filed false tax returns to conceal their fraud. Knowing full well the clinic had not purchased the quantity of medications for which they billed insurance plans, they fraudulently overstated the clinic’s expenses on its tax returns for 2014, 2015 and 2017, which allowed them to underreport the clinic’s total income during those years. And from 2018 to 2021, the Tans willfully failed to file tax returns for the clinic. The Tans’ tax fraud scheme caused a total loss to the IRS of more than $4.2 million.
In July 2019, federal law enforcement officers executed a search warrant on the clinic, which uncovered stockpiles of expired medications prescribed to patients for at-home use, free samples clearly marked as not-for-sale and improperly stored and reconstituted syringes of medications. Some of the expired medications, pictured below, were improperly intermingled with other medication stored at the clinic.
Stockpiled Medications
Following the search warrant, the Tans temporarily began purchasing the medications for which they billed insurance companies. In 2021, however, they reverted to their fraudulent billing practices and once again failed to actually purchase the medications they claimed to administer. They persisted in the scheme until they were indicted by a federal grand jury in July 2024.
In November 2025, the Tans both pleaded guilty in the District of Alaska to one count of health care fraud and one count of tax evasion.
In 2024 and 2025, the U.S. Attorney’s Office seized approximately $10.4 million in health care fraud proceeds from the Tans. As part of their plea agreements, the Tans agreed to forfeit the seized funds to the U.S. The Tans also submitted a $6.3 million payment towards their future restitution judgment. A district judge will schedule a separate hearing to determine restitution. The Tans also paid approximately $1.8 million to the United States to settle civil claims under the False Claims Act arising from the health care fraud scheme. Claribel Tan also has surrendered her medical license.
More information about the case is available at https://www.justice.gov/usao-ak/united-states-v-tan-et-al. Victims who believe they may be entitled to restitution can email usaak.victim.witness@usdoj.gov for more information.
Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Michael J. Heyman for the District of Alaska made the announcement.
Department of Defense Criminal Investigative Service, IRS Criminal Investigation, the FBI, Defense Contract Audit Agency, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General Criminal Investigations Division, Department of Labor Employee Benefits Security Administration, Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations, Office of Personnel Management Office of the Inspector General, and State of Alaska Division of Insurance Investigation Unit investigated the case.
Trial Attorney Dominick Giovanniello of the Criminal Division’s Tax Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Seth Beausang of the District of Alaska prosecuted the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jackie Traini of the District of Alaska led the civil fraud investigation.