Gorakhpur, India — A new scandal has emerged in Uttar Pradesh’s healthcare system, where doctors’ names and signatures were allegedly misused to defraud insurance companies of millions of rupees.
At the center of the controversy is the Distance Multispeciality Hospital in Gorakhpur, accused of fabricating treatment records for patients who were never actually seen by the doctors listed.
Dr. A.K. Singh, whose name repeatedly appears in the fraudulent claims, has publicly denied any involvement. “I never visited these hospitals, nor treated any patients there. My name and signatures were misused,” Dr. Singh said.
Complaints Ignored for Months
Dr. Singh had filed formal complaints as early as April 2025 with the District Magistrate and the Chief Medical Officer, warning that his credentials were being exploited. Despite those warnings, hospitals continued to file insurance claims in his name, raising questions about the accountability of both medical institutions and insurers.
FCRF Academy Invites Legal Experts to Shape India’s First Comprehensive Cyber Law Certification
Expanding Web of Nursing Homes
The police investigation has since widened. Four additional nursing homes are now under scrutiny, after documents seized from hospital computers suggested similar practices of forging doctors’ signatures and submitting inflated claims. Early findings suggest that the scale of the fraud could run into crores of rupees.
Expert Concerns
“This is not an isolated case of individual fraud,” said Professor Triveni Singh, a former police officer and cybercrime expert. “It exposes the structural weakness of India’s health insurance system. The lack of centralized digital verification for doctors’ credentials and treatment records creates space for large-scale manipulation. Until hospitals and insurers adopt robust technological safeguards, such scams will continue to surface.”
The Bigger Picture
Officials admit that verifying claims is often a slow process, and systemic loopholes allow fake bills to slip through. Some suspects are already under arrest, but investigators believe the fraud may have been running for years, with insiders from both hospitals and insurance companies complicit.
Bottom line: For genuine patients, the scandal raises doubts about whether their claims will be processed fairly. For insurers, it underlines how fragile oversight mechanisms remain in India’s booming health insurance sector.