Commentary: Big Tent Ideas

Indian Fraud Has Made Its Way Into American Healthcare

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In December 2025, India seized over 100,000 forged diplomas from 28 universities that had been accepted by American companies for employment.

In a bombshell report by a former U.S. diplomat, Mahvash Siddiqui alleged that 80% to 90% of the H-1B visa applications from India she reviewed involved fraudulent documentation or unqualified applicants.

What is even more alarming is that some of those applicants could now be serving as physicians, surgeons and in various roles as health care professionals across the United States due to decades-old policies that incentivize the speedy hiring of foreign health care professionals.

A compounded immigration issue that could be an American public health and safety crisis, putting American lives at risk.

Well-qualified, skilled Indian experts bring immense value to the U.S. Yet the actions of some who exploit the immigration system with fake degrees and certifications have cast a damaging shadow over the well-qualified Indian people.

India is the biggest source country for physicians and surgeons in the U.S., and the second largest of registered nurses. 

However, the Indian healthcare education pipeline raises serious questions as to whether they should be blanketly accepted into American healthcare systems. To put it into perspective, India’s cost for a medical degree is reportedly as low as $800, and Indian students can become general practitioners in as little as 5.5 years. In comparison, it takes 11-15 years to become a doctor in the U.S., including undergraduate, medical school and residency training, and even longer for specialized training, and it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for tuition and living expenses.

In 2020, three Indian American doctors were accused of performing fake research on fake data. All three doctors held high-level positions, including the chief of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Utah, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a surgeon based in Chicago. The three doctors published these “findings” in major medical journals and several research papers, some of which addressed potential COVID-19 treatments. Mandeep Mehra, one of the doctors accused and who offered an unconditional apology, now actively serves as the medical director for the Heart and Vascular Center at a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital in Boston.

Another Indian doctor, Anoop Shankar, who was awarded a Genius visa, claimed to have graduated from India’s top medical school, worked as a 21-year-old doctor, and researched population-wide diseases. Thus, West Virginia University hand-picked Shankar to be the first endowed professor in its new School of Public Health. Yet, there is no record of him attending medical school or publishing research, as he claimed he had written on his visa resume. Shankar was later forced out of WVU, but he later published medical research in the Journal of the American Medical Association and landed a position at Virginia Commonwealth University. Shankar left the US around 2014. In 2018, US authorities filed federal fraud/immigration charges and sought his extradition from India (after he reportedly spent time in the UAE). It’s unclear whether Shankar is still living in India.

In November 2025, a man named Samrat Mukherjee, an ex-paramedic based in Louisiana who never completed an undergraduate degree, faked completing medical school and instead embroidered his clothes with “M.D.” and “flight surgeon,” was granted full access to many hospitals in the Baton Rouge area. For years, Mukherjee treated patients, ordered prescriptions, and even assumed the identity of two actual doctors. Mukherjee later pleaded guilty to a felony count of making false statements relating to health care matters.

This past week, Dr. Ashok Muralidaran, who earned his medical degree from Madras Medical College in India, was sued for $17 million after he installed a heart valve upside down in a 13-year-old girl. The error was later discovered as parents say their daughter was on the brink of death, and another hospital saved her by performing a corrective procedure that required stopping the girl’s heart and placing her on cardiac bypass.

The issue is that the U.S. has two main defenses against imposter doctors: a supervised residency and the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE). However, states are actively easing licensing requirements for foreign-trained physicians due to doctor shortages, while the USMLE can be cheated on by insiders and early test-takers. In January 2024, the USMLE  invalidated the scores of 832 test-takers, primarily international medical graduates based in Nepal. An investigation exposed a massive cheating ring using messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram to share a 1,000-page leaked question document known as “The Savior”.

These examples and loopholes raise serious questions as to how many foreign healthcare workers are actively treating American patients who fake credentials, faked medical school, and/or cheated on the American medical exams, and therefore are incompetent and dangerous to the American people.

Companies have even put out healthcare job postings only open to those who hold immigrant statuses such as J-1, H-1B, and O-1. One example is a posting by a hospital based in Maryland, UPMC, which put out a job posting for a Hospitalist Physician, eligible for a $30,000 bonus with J-1 and H-1 B visa sponsorship.

Not to mention, the growing number of AI deep fake doctors taking advantage of telehealth systems and lax safeguards for AI chatbots.

Concerns over the validity of credentials held by some Indian nationals entering the U.S. have prompted serious consideration about who is serving in critical medical and healthcare positions. The problem, seen within a tight-knit Indian community, has led some to ask whether a culture of credential fraud is now spreading to the United States.

The challenge facing the U.S. healthcare system is the growing reliance on foreign-trained doctors, when the U.S. should instead be investing in training more American medical professionals.

The U.S. search for foreign-trained doctors stemmed from a 1997 Congressional cap on Medicare-funded residency positions. Thus, hospitals have little incentive beyond these Medicare-funded slots, due to high training costs. While U.S. medical school graduates have risen in recent years, these residency barriers have been unable to keep up with the demand, forcing medical school graduates who were unable to be matched with residencies to seek other options like research and public health, where they are competing with foreigners for placement.

The bottom line is that essential credentials across the STEM industries have been fabricated and are now outcompeting American citizens for jobs and key educational opportunities. In fact, in the past few years alone, big tech companies have fired over hundreds of thousands of American workers, only to hire majority Indian immigrants on various visas.

The American people deserve the best medical care and should never have to question whether their healthcare professional is qualified or the service they’re providing. Whether it’s overreliance on foreign-trained doctors, DEI initiatives, or fake medical degrees, none of these have a place in the healthcare of Americans.