A high-level – and healthy – hospital exec is under fire for telling doctors to falsely diagnose him with dementia in order to get prescription medicines through state medical insurance.

The deputy director of Beijing’s Peking University International Hospital, a private hospital affiliated with the prestigious university, cheated the national medical insurance system for nearly two years before Beijing News reporters exposed the fraud.

The executive, surnamed Xie, illegally took medicines worth of roughly 1,000 yuan ($148) every two weeks. The hospital has since suspended him.

“If I were a true sufferer of dementia, how could I talk to you [normally] like this?” Xie said to Beijing News after admitting his misdeeds last week.

As hospitals are given strict quotas regarding certain medicines according to their ratings and qualifications, it is likely that Xie took advantage of his position at a highly-rated hospital to trade the medicines to others that failed to acquire them.

At the same hospital, a doctor surnamed Tan was found to be diagnosing patients with different diseases depending on whether the treatments would be covered by state medical insurance, Beijing News also reported. 

The Beijing Municipal Medical Insurance Bureau confirmed the media reports Thursday, and is investigating both cases.

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