January 24, 2024

Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay $149.5 million to Washington State for its role in fueling the opioid epidemic after the Attorney General Bob Ferguson rejected a 2021 settlement and chose to continue litigation.  The company was a top supplier of ingredients used to make opioid drugs, and marketed the drugs for chronic pain conditions that studies showed were not effectively treated by opioids.  This is the fifth national...

November 6, 2023

Drogueria Betances LLC will pay $12 million and will make extensive compliance and reporting improvements as required under a consent decree, for its failures to report suspicious orders and make required reports to the DEA. One of Puerto Rico's largest pharmaceutical drugs distributors, Betances failed to report to the DEA hundreds of "suspicious orders" for fentanyl and oxycodone from 2016 through at least June 2019. Additionally, from May 2017 to July 2018, Betances...

September 8, 2023

Grocery store chain Kroger, which owns and operates a number of subsidiaries, has agreed to pay $1.37 billion to a number of states, including California, Illinois, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, and Virginia.  The settlement in principle would absolve Kroger for its role in the opioid crisis.  CA AG; NC AG; OR AG

August 18, 2023

A doctor who defrauded California’s Medicaid program of over $20 million has been sentenced to 5 years in jail, ordered to pay $2.3 million in restitution, and forced to surrender his medical license.  Mohamed Waddah El-Nachef had pleaded guilty to prescribing medically unnecessary anti-psychotics, HIV medications, and opioids to over a thousand Medi-Cal beneficiaries, many of whom then sold the drugs for cash.  CA AG

July 31, 2023

The distributors of a product marked as a quick and easy way to quit smoking has been ordered to pay over $7 million in restitution as well as a $500,000 civil penalty.  Michael Connors and his companies ProTouch Marketing LLC (d/b/a Smart Day Supplements), Woodford Hills LLC, Oakhill Research LLC, Evergreen Marketing LLC, Sterling Health LLC, and Clara Vista Media LLC allegedly repeatedly violated the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act...

Catch of the Week: National Health Care Fraud Sweep

This week's Department of Justice (DOJ) Catch of the Week goes to the 78 individuals criminally charged with participating in health care fraud and opioid abuse schemes across the country.  On Wednesday, DOJ announced the "strategically coordinated, two-week nationwide law enforcement action" it brought with federal and state law enforcement partners, which targeted misconduct resulting in over $2.5 billion in alleged fraud. According to the government, the defendants allegedly defrauded...

June 5, 2023

Indivior Inc., maker of Suboxone, agreed to a $102.5 million multi-state settlement with 42 state attorneys general for allegedly trying to preserve its drug monopoly by illegally switching the Suboxone market from tablets to film, attempting to destroy the market for tablets. As part of the settlement, Indivior is required to disclose all of the citizen petitions to the FDA, introduction of new products, or if there is a change...

January 30, 2023

A doctor in Michigan who was involved in a $250 million fraud scheme against Medicare, Medicaid, and other insurers, has been sentenced to 16.5 years in prison.  Along with 21 co-conspirators, Dr. Francisco Patino took advantage of patients suffering from addiction by forcing them to receive medically unnecessary, painful, but lucrative spinal injections in exchange for opioid prescriptions.  Additionally, Patino knowingly violated the Anti-Kickback and Stark laws by receiving kickbacks...

Top Ten State Fraud Recoveries of 2022

State and local governments play a critical role in ensuring that businesses and individuals are held accountable if they commit healthcare fraud, financial fraud, government contract fraud, and more. For whistleblowers, state governments can offer additional opportunities to report wrongdoing. Where government funds are at stake – and state and local government spending reaching $3 trillion annually – more than 30 states have False Claims Acts that are modeled after...

December 5, 2022

An opioid abuse treatment facility in New Jersey has agreed to pay $3.15 million and enter into a three-year deferred prosecution agreement to resolve criminal and civil charges relating to alleged violations of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute.  Between 2009 and 2015, Camden Treatment Associates LLC (CTA) allegedly received kickbacks from a related company in exchange for exclusive orders of CTA’s methadone mixing services.  CTA then allegedly submitted false claims to...