Becker's has reported on four physician fraud cases totaling more than $15 million in the last two weeks:
1. Physicians and marketers in five states agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle false claims stemming from a laboratory kickback scheme. The settlements resolve allegations that two laboratory marketers and their companies paid kickbacks to five physicians in return for laboratory referrals
2. Anesthesiologist John Johnson, MD, 62, pleaded guilty to entering into an agreement to defraud health insurers for fraudulently billing for urine drug tests. From mid-2017 to late 2019, his practice, Pain Medicine of York, billed Medicare for around $10 million for urine testing.
3. Wendell Randall, MD, of Millers Creek, N.C., was sentenced to 18 months in prison for an illegal drug dispensing conspiracy. Dr. Randall conspired with others to allow his DEA registration number to be used to prescribe drugs to patients he rarely saw and was paid more than $300,000 by L5 Medical Holdings, a company operating pain clinics for a drug and healthcare fraud enterprise.
4. Nathan Lucas, DPM, a podiatrist in Memphis, Tenn., was convicted for a scheme to defraud Medicare and TennCare out of nearly $4 million in foot bath medication reimbursements. From October 2018 to September 2021, Dr. Lucas regularly prescribed antibiotic and antifungal drugs for foot baths based on reimbursement amounts rather than medical necessity.