federal investigation resulted in charges against 17 people in California, including a doctor and several pharmacy owners, allegedly involved in a prescription harvesting scheme that attempted to defraud Medicare and Medi-Cal of $18 million. Allegedly, Manor Medical Imaging Clinic, Glendale, CA, recruited Medicare and Medi-Cal beneficiaries, and used their beneficiary information to bill for illegitimate medical services and prescriptions for expensive anti-psychotic drugs.
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The drugs were dispensed by pharmacies allegedly involved in the scheme and were diverted to black market wholesalers and back to the pharmacies where they were re-labeled, re-packaged, and re-dispensed, with new bills submitted to Medicare and/or Medi-Cal. More than $18 million in fraudulent claims were submitted as part of the scheme, with $7.3 million in claims paid out. As explained in a US Attorney’s Office press release, “This is the first case in the nation alleging an organized scheme to defraud government health care programs through fraudulent claims for anti-psychotic medications, a type of scheme that investigators say is on the increase around the nation. Court documents outline a conspiracy in which Manor operated a bogus clinic authorized to make claims to Medicare, employed a doctor to write prescriptions, and had close relationships with pharmacies and a fraudulent drug wholesale company that was used to funnel prescription drugs back to the pharmacies participating in the scheme.” All 17 defendants named in the federal criminal complaint are charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud, a charge that carries a statutory maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison.
