Your prescribed dose of health law news
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut announced on November 3 that Ananthakumar Thillainathan, a physician with offices in Stratford and Milford, pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud and federal kickback violations. The doctor faces up to 20 years in prison and a restitution payment of almost $1.7 million.
Thillainathan, the owner of MDCareNow…
A Suffolk County, New York court held on November 16 that White’s Apothecary in East Hampton was not negligent when it filled a physician’s opioid and benzodiazepine prescriptions as ordered. The plaintiff had claimed that the pharmacy should be liable for filling “excessive and dangerous doses” of oxycodone and Carisoprodol, a muscle relaxant, despite a…
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on November 10 that five former employees of Methodist Hospital, based in Memphis, Tennessee, were indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly selling the names and telephone numbers of hospital patients who were involved in automobile accidents. Roderick Harvey paid them for the information and then sold it…
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on November 16 that two pharmacy owners from Forest Hills, New York have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering through submission of fraudulent claims to Medicare during the COVID-19 pandemic. The co-conspirators owned over a dozen pharmacies in the New York area, through which they submitted…
Rivkin Radler’s Michael Sirignano authored an article for the November 3 issue of the New York Law Journal entitled “The Triple Threat of Workers’ Compensation Fraud.” Although the article wasn’t in time for Rivkin Rounds’ recent Fraud Week, it discussed some recent attempts by healthcare providers to game the workers’ comp system by…
Federal and state enforcement activity involving pharmacy fraud tops the list of categories in this edition of Rivkin Rounds’ Fraud Week. We’ll list just a sampling of cases.
On October 19, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Jerry May Keepers of Kingswood, Texas was sentenced to 36 months of supervised probation for writing…
Home health-related fraud and dentists behaving badly (see this week’s earlier posts) have both been notable recent trends, but the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has been even busier lately cracking down on fraud involving durable medical equipment. Most recently, on October 25, DOJ announced that Daniel Canchola of Flower Mound, Texas pleaded guilty to…
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on October 18 that Oklahoma-based Carter Healthcare LLC and its affiliates, plus two executives, agreed to pay a total of over $30 million to resolve two separate qui tam cases. One lawsuit claimed that Carter paid remuneration to physicians in Oklahoma and Texas to induce referrals of Medicare…
The U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey and New York Attorney General Letitia James both announced on October 6 that pediatric dentist Barry L. Jacobson, his management company, and 13 affiliated pediatric dentistry practices agreed to pay $753,457 to resolve allegations of False Claims Act violations. Between 2011 and 2018, Jacobson and other…
On October 7, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey announced that a former physician pleaded guilty to conspiring to wrongfully disclose patients’ protected health information to a pharmaceutical sales representative. Frank Alario, who had had numerous offices in New Jersey, Manhattan and Florida, admitted to criminal HIPAA violations in connection with…
