Archive

October 31, 2019

In the largest healthcare fraud case ever to come out of Mississippi, pharmacy owner Thomas Spell has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay over $243 million in restitution for knowingly defrauding TRICARE.  Between 2014 and 2016, Spell and his co-conspirators had deviously marketed compounded medications based on their rate of reimbursement from TRICARE, paid illegal kickbacks to marketers in order to obtain prescriptions from TRICARE beneficiaries, and improperly waived mandatory copayments for TRICARE beneficiaries.  USAO SDMS

October 28, 2019

Atheir Amarrah, the owner of Michigan-based Prompt Care Home Health Services Inc, has been sentenced to 5 years in prison and ordered to pay $1 million in restitution after pleading guilty to paying recruiters for referrals to Medicare beneficiaries.  In his guilty plea, Amarrah also admitted to billing Medicare for claims tainted by illegal kickbacks.  DOJ

October 28, 2019

Sanford Health, Sanford Medical Center, and Sanford Clinic have agreed to pay $20.25 million and enter into a Corporate Integrity Agreement in order to resolve alleged violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute and False Claims Act.  Despite warnings by several physicians that a top neurosurgeon was illegally profiting off his use of implantable medical devices as well as performing medically unnecessary surgeries involving the devices, Sanford did nothing to stop the offender, allowing Medicare and Medicaid to continue being defrauded.  The allegations were raised by Sanford surgeons Drs. Carl Dustin Bechtold and Bryan Wellman, who will share in a $3.4 million cut of the settlement proceeds.  DOJ; USAO SD

October 25, 2019

Two foundations that provide pharmaceutical co-payment assistance to patients have reached agreements to resolve claims that they failed to operate independently of their pharmaceutical company donors and violated or caused the violation of the False Claims Act and Anti-Kickback Statute by working with those companies to ensure that donations received from them would be used to cover co-payments for the donor's drugs, inducing patients to purchase the drugs.  The Chronic Disease Fund, Inc. will pay $2 million, and the Patient Access Network Foundation will pay $4 million, amounts that were arrived at based on the entities' abilities to pay.  CDF was alleged to have conspired with Novartis, Dendreon, Astellas, Onyx, and Questcor.  PANF was alleged to have conspired with Bayer, Astellas, Dendreon, and Amgen.  The foundations also entered into 3-year corporate integrity agreements.  USAO MA

October 9, 2019

Genetic testing company UTC Laboratories, Inc. (RenRX), along with three principals, have agreed to pay a combined $42.6 million to settle six suits alleging violations of the Anti-Kickback Statue and False Claims Act.  Between 2013 and 2017, RenRX and principals Tarun Jolly, M.D., Patrick Ridgeway, and Barry Griffith allegedly paid cash bribes to physician entities and individuals to induce orders of medically unnecessary pharmacogenetic tests that were subsequently billed to Medicare.  As part of the settlement, RenRX also agreed to a twenty-five year period of exclusion from participating in any federal healthcare program.  USAO EDLA

October 4, 2019

Florida man Brock Lovelace has been sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison following his conviction at trial on charges related to his payment of kickbacks to medical clinics in the Miami area in exchange for the clinics providing him with DNA samples for submission to a DNA testing laboratory between 2013 and 2014.  Lovelace requested that the medical clinics collect the DNA of all the patients who visited the clinics; in turn, the clinics provided food and other inducements to beneficiaries to get them to visit.  Lovelace then submitted the DNA swabs to a testing lab, which billed Medicare.  The patients were not provided with the results of the DNA testing, and typically did not have any medical need for the DNA testing.  Lovelace was previously sentenced to 14 years in prison on other healthcare fraud charges; he will serve the present sentence consecutively.  DOJ

October 3, 2019

Glenn A. Kline and Community Surgical Associates of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, will pay $4.25 million to resolve claims that Dr. Kline entered into an unlawful kickback arrangement with two hospitals owned by Health Management Associates in exchange for his referral of patients to the hospitals.  The hospitals paid Dr. Kline far above fair market value for his services, and made additional payments to Community Surgical Associates, structuring those payments to conceal their purpose.  HMA previously paid $260 million to resolve related claims; physician groups, EmCare Inc. and Physician’s Alliance Ltd, agreed to pay more than $33 million; and, former HMA CEO Gary Newsome agreed to pay $3.5 million.  The claims against Kline and Community Surgical were original made in a qui tam complaint filed by former HMA executives George Miller and Michael Metts; they will receive $1.05 million of the settlement.  USAO ED PA

September 27, 2019

In an investigation dubbed Operation Double Helix, charges have been brought against 35 defendants associated with a number of telemedicine and cancer genetic testing laboratories involved in a scheme that resulted in the submission of more than $2.1 billion in fraudulent Medicare claims.  Cancer genetic testing laboratories involved in the scheme are alleged to have paid illegal kickbacks to providers and others working with fraudulent telemedicine companies in exchange for the referral of Medicare beneficiaries for expensive and medically unnecessary cancer genetic tests, which Medicare was then billed for. Some of the defendants allegedly controlled a telemarketing network that lured hundreds of thousands of elderly and/or disabled patients into signing up for unnecessary genetic tests, often without any interaction with the provider who would prescribe the testing.  DOJ; USAO ED LA

September 26, 2019

Pharmaceutical manufacturer Avanir Pharmaceuticals will pay approximately $116 million to resolve civil and criminal charges related to its marketing of Nuedextra for off-label purposes and payment of kickbacks to prescribers and others.  The government alleged that Avanir marketed Nuedextra to long-term care facilities, suggesting that it could be used as an alternative to anti-psychotics for dementia patients, even though Nuedextra had only been approved by the FDA for treatment of particular symptoms secondary to a neurologic disease or brain injury.  In addition, Avanir provided certain physicians and other healthcare professionals with unlawful remuneration in the form of money, honoraria, travel, and food to induce them to write prescriptions for Nuedexta. The civil settlement for $103 million, which includes a five-year corporate integrity agreement, resolves whistleblower actions brought under federal and state False Claims Acts by former Avanir employees Kevin Manieri, Duane Arnold, and Mark Shipman.  Manieri will receive $12.4 million, and Arnold and Shipman will receive $5.4 million. In addition to the civil settlement, Avanir will pay a criminal penalty of $7.8 million, forfeit $5.1 million, and enter into a deferred prosecution agreement admitting to payment of kickbacks and requiring cooperation in ongoing in ongoing criminal investigations of individuals involved in marketing and prescribing Nuedextra.  Indictments against four individuals, including former Avanir employees and one of the top prescribers of Nuedexta in the country, were announced, charging the individuals with conspiracy to solicit, receive, offer and pay health care kickbacks.  DOJ

September 25, 2019

Mobile diagnostic service provider Trident USA Health Services LLC has agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle two whistleblower cases alleging violations of the False Claims Act.  Trident’s CIO, Ravi Srivastava, and a regional sales manager, Peter Goldman, had each filed their own qui tam suits alleging Trident had been engaged in a kickback scheme with skilled nursing facilities between 2006 and 2019.  For their efforts, Srivastava will receive $2 million and Goldman will receive $106,250 of the government’s recovery.  USAO EDPA