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St. Louis Doctor Who Ran Urgent Care Centers Sentenced To Prison For Fraud

Sonny Saggar, a physician who runs several urgent care facilities in the area, checks his phone between patients at his downtown St. Louis practice on Feb. 5, 2015. Photo by Christian Gooden.

ST. LOUIS — A doctor who ran two urgent care centers was sentenced to 35 months in prison Wednesday in a federal fraud case.

Sonny Saggar, 57, was convicted of defrauding Medicare and Missouri Medicaid.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark sentenced Saggar to prison and ordered him to repay $742,528. Once he leaves prison, Saggar will be on three years' supervised release.

Saggar pleaded guilty in August to one count of conspiracy.

Saggar is the former emergency room director at South City Hospital — then known as St. Alexius Hospital. He served as the hospital's CEO for a brief period in 2020.

The federal charges stem from Saggar's work with two urgent care centers. He ran St. Louis General Hospital locations in downtown St. Louis and near Creve Coeur. He and his office manager were accused of fraudulently billing Medicare and Medicaid since the fall of 2017.

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They hired assistant physicians to see patients but billed Medicare and Missouri Medicaid as if Saggar himself had seen the patients, even when Saggar was out of town.

Dr. Sonny Saggar, in a Post-Dispatch file photo.

Assistant physicians are required to practice under an agreement with a doctor, who is considered their supervisor. Prosecutors said the clinics offered stipends to doctors to sign up to serve in that supervisory role, but in many cases, the assistant physicians "often never met and did not receive any training" from those doctors.

Federal prosecutors said Saggar admitted hiring numerous assistant physicians from July 2018 to July 2023 to work at the two urgent care centers. Saggar admitted the assistant physicians weren't properly trained or supervised and that he and his office manager told them to consult each other about medical questions.

Saggar also hired a doctor in 2022 who had been indicted in another case to be the sole collaborating physician at the Creve Coeur location but did not tell Medicaid about the arrangement. That doctor's billing privileges with Medicaid had been suspended, prosecutors said.

"This crime went beyond bilking taxpayer funded healthcare programs," Ashley Johnson, special agent in charge of the FBI's St. Louis office, said in a news release. "Dr. Sonny Saggar risked the well-being of patients with urgent medical needs. He knew his assistant physicians were not qualified to see patients without supervision."

Office manager Renita Barringer, 51, pleaded guilty in December to one count of conspiracy. Sentencing for Barringer is set for April 22.

Their actions led to a loss of $742,528 to Medicare and Medicaid, according to a release from U.S. Attorney Sayler Fleming's office.

In 2018, the city of St. Louis ended a contract with Saggar's urgent care to provide residents free testing for sexually transmitted infections, the Post-Dispatch reported at the time. The decision came after other providers in the area complained that the clinic was violating the contract by charging fees, and failing to routinely conduct STI screenings. Saggar denied that the clinic charged patients, and said it did perform regular testing.

Post-Dispatch photographers capture hundreds of images each week; here's a glimpse at the week of Feb. 9, 2025. Video edited by Jenna Jones.

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