ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Anchorage physician Dr. Claribel Tan was sentenced today to 78 months in federal prison on Count 1, health care fraud, and 60 months on Count 2, tax evasion, to be served concurrently.
Tan will also serve two years of supervised release after prison. Restitution is expected to total at least $17 million.
Her husband, Daniel Tan, was sentenced to three years of probation with two of those years to be served in home confinement.
Tan previously pleaded guilty to charges tied to what federal prosecutors described as multi-million-dollar health care and tax fraud schemes.
According to a U.S. Department of Justice press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska, Claribel Tan and her husband pleaded guilty in 2025. Prosecutors said the case involved a $12.5 million health care fraud scheme as well as a separate tax fraud scheme.
The DOJ said Claribel Tan admitted she caused the submission of millions of dollars in false and fraudulent claims to health care benefit programs.
The courtroom was full of many of Claribel Tan’s former patients waiting to provide victim impact statements.
Erinn Marteney, a nurse, said she was falsely diagnosed with a heart murmur and went untreated for multiple sclerosis, adding that her overall quality of life has diminished, which ultimately impacts her entire family.
“I will never know how different my life would be if I had received the correct diagnosis,” Marteney said.
Brett Luna, United States Airforce veteran, said he had been seeing Tan for rheumatoid arthritis.
“They were mistreating me, it was intentional, calculated, egregious,” Luna said. “They fully prevented me from participating in my own life.”
Dawn Whisenhunt was a patient of Tan from 2007 to 2023 and spoke through tears about being kept sick on purpose for 16 years. She said for years she believed her disease was being treated as well as it could be and considered the Tan’s to be family. After learning of the fraud accusations, Whisenhunt described the news as the “most painful and utter betrayal.”
But not every former patient was there to provide a critical statement. Susie Jolly said it was Tan who on two separate occasions accurately caught serious conditions — a hernia and blood clots — that she believes would have cost her her life had it not been diagnosed in time.
“I never had a reason not to trust her and if your doors were open, I would come,” Jolly said.
U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman said victim impact statements underscored the broader damage caused by the case.
“Crimes like this that are economic crimes aren’t just about the dollars. They’re about so much more,” Heyman said.
Heyman said the length of the sentence was significant in a white-collar case.
“In a white-collar offense, when you receive multi-year sentences, those are significant,” he said, adding that “the 78-month…sentence is very significant.”
Just before sentencing, Tan delivered a statement of her own apologizing for her actions. She said much of what she learned to do was during her time in the Philippines when prescribing expired medications was a way of trying to save her patients money.
“There is no excuse for what I’ve done. What I did was illegal and it was wrong,” Tan said. “I’m very sorry for what I’ve done.”
At one point during her statement, Tan turned to the gallery of former patients and kneeled before them while apologizing, an act that Heyman later criticized.
“In over 25 years of experience, I’ve never seen a defendant kneel before the audience and the court… It was disingenuous,” Heyman said. “It didn’t come off as someone that was truly sorry for their conduct.”
He added he believed greed drove the scheme.
“In that entire recitation, the one word you did not hear was greed, and that’s what motivated this crime,” Heyman said.
Heyman said he did not recall one single tip that started the investigation, but said insurers began scrutinizing billing.
“Insurance companies originally started looking at the billing and questioning the billing amounts that were coming in versus the amounts that were then being ordered,” he said.
The restitution figure is expected to be finalized through the court process. Claribel Tan’s supervised release term begins after she completes her prison sentence.
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