HARRISBURG — Attorney General Dave Sunday announced that a Philadelphia pharmacy will pay more than $2 million in restitution after pleading guilty to felony Medicaid Fraud and theft charges related to the dispensing of unregulated HIV medications.
The business entity, Surnil Pharmacy, Inc. — which had a West Girard Avenue store location, Haussemann’s Pharmacy — pleaded guilty Wednesday in Philadelphia County Court. The company paid $2.3 million to Medicare and Medicaid in a court-ordered restitution.
The Office of Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Section charged the company earlier this year for its role in a multi-million dollar scheme to defraud the Medicaid and Medicare programs through reimbursements of HIV medications.
The investigation revealed that HIV medications — an estimated 100,000 tablets — dispensed from the pharmacy were not from legitimate wholesale suppliers.
”The distribution of life-saving medications is appropriately strictly regulated. This company put profits over their patients and broke the law to ignore those regulations for their own benefit,” Attorney General Sunday said. “I commend our Medicaid Fraud Control Section and our partners with the Department of Health and Services for a meticulous investigation that led to the stoppage of these unregulated sales and the recovery of millions of dollars that will benefit underserved citizens.”
The Office of Attorney General jointly investigated this case with the Department of Health and Human Services – Office of Inspector General.
The investigation found no evidence of individuals who experienced physical harm or illness due to these dispensed medications.
Subhash Patel, the group’s owner and pharmacist, as part of the plea resolution, is prohibited from being a Medicaid/Medicare provider for at least five years, and his pharmacist license will be suspended for that same time period.
Haussemann’s Pharmacy, along with other pharmacies owned by Patel — West Girard Health Pharmacy, East Lehigh Health Pharmacy, Frankford Health Pharmacy, and 11th and Walnut Pharmacy — have since closed.
Agents interviewed Haussemann’s employees who said that the owner, Patel, was acquiring expensive HIV medications from a source other than one of Haussemann’s legitimate wholesale drug suppliers and putting them on the shelf to be dispensed to patients. The employees described the bottles as “sticky” to the touch, as if labels had been removed from the bottles.
The case was prosecuted by the Office of Attorney General Medicaid Fraud Control Section.
The Pennsylvania Medicaid Fraud Control Unit receives 75 percent of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a grant award totaling $13,491,632 for federal fiscal year (FY) 2026. The remaining 25 percent, totaling $4,497,207 for FY 2026, is funded by Pennsylvania.
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