Doctors Jailed in Michigan, Ohio in $250M Opioid Health Care Fraud

Sixteen Michigan and Ohio-area defendants, including 12 physicians, have been sentenced to prison for a $250 million health care fraud scheme that included the exploitation of patients suffering from addiction and the illegal distribution of over 6.6 million doses of medically unnecessary opioids. The scheme, perpetrated through a multi-state network of pain clinics from 2007 to 2018, involved doctors refusing to provide patients with opioids unless they agreed to unnecessary back injections.

According to the Department of Justice, the evidence established that the clinics were pill mills frequented by patients suffering from addiction, as well as drug dealers, who sought to obtain high-dosage prescription drugs like oxycodone from doctors who agreed to work only a few hours a week to “stay under the radar” of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), yet were among the highest prescribers of oxycodone in the State of Michigan. In some instances, patients experienced more pain from the shots than from the pain they had purportedly come to have treated, and that some patients developed adverse conditions, including open holes in their back. The proceeds of the fraud, over $16 million of which was forfeited by the United States from the defendants, were used to fuel lavish lifestyles, the DOJ said.