Healthcare Compliance Perspective:
Vendors must be screened prior to conducting business to ensure no violations that may impact the Compliance and Ethics program, including felonies related to the unlawful manufacture, distribution, prescription, or distribution of a controlled substance.
The convicted doctor was the main supplier to a drug trafficking organization that had as many as 40 participants who were recruiters, pill fillers and dealers who sold to addicts.
The conspiracy spanned over six years starting in January 2011 until the doctor was indicted on August 10, of this year of 18 counts of distribution of controlled substances and 1 count of conspiracy to possess controlled substances with the intent to distribute. During that period, the doctor is believed to have dispensed 1,257 fraudulent prescriptions amounting to more than 223,000 Oxycodone 30-mg pills that were distributed into the underground stream of commerce.
The doctor had medical offices in Richmond and authorities said that he allowed his medical practice to function as a “pill mill,” and he failed to assess the medical needs of numerous people to whom he wrote prescriptions.
The doctor represented himself at trial, and was convicted by a jury on all 19 counts charged in the indictment. One expert who testified during the trial described the doctor as “a one-man opioid epidemic.”
In addition to the prison sentence, the Court also entered a forfeiture order in the amount of $628,500 which represents the proceeds the doctor received from this drug trafficking conspiracy.
