Neurologist found guilty in $150M fraud scheme alongside 3 other physicians
A federal jury convicted neurologist Mohammed Zahoor, MD, and three other physicians of participating in a $150 million healthcare fraud scheme, the Department of Justice announced Feb. 4.
The four-week trial also culminated in convictions for Michigan pulmonologist Tariq Omar, MD, and emergency medicine specialists Spilios Pappas, MD, and Joseph Betro, DO, of Ohio and Michigan, respectively.
While working at several Tri-County Group medical clinics in Michigan and Ohio from 2008-16, Drs. Zahoor, Omar, Pappas and Betro allegedly required patients to receive expensive, medically unnecessary services such as facet joint injections and urinary drug screens in order to obtain prescriptions for opioids, benzodiazepines and other narcotics.
Patients who told the physicians they didn’t “want, need or benefit from” the expensive, unnecessary injections were denied prescriptions until they agreed to have them.
The defendants prescribed over 6.6 million doses of opioids and regularly offered patients 30 milligrams of oxycodone, a dosage only deemed suitable for terminally ill cancer patients. Some of their patients suffered from legitimate pain, and others were drug dealers or opioid addicts. In certain cases, the unnecessary shots made patients’ pain worse or led to adverse conditions, including open holes in the back.
In an “assembly line” type operation, the four physicians would see dozens of patients during shifts ranging from two to four hours, prosecutors said. The defendants were paid up to $3,500 an hour by falsely representing medical necessity and exaggerating time spent with patients on Medicare claims.
The physicians were also involved in a scheme to send urine tests for every patient to National Laboratories, a business owned by a co-conspirator, in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars in illegal kickbacks.
The physicians’ sentencing hearings are scheduled for July. Each was found guilty of one count of healthcare fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and wire fraud. Previously, 17 other defendants, including eight physicians, pleaded guilty in connection with the case.
Doctor would not give individuals their pain medication … unless they capitulated in having an epidural
So here we have two examples – one of the DOJ going after “needle jockeys” and the other getting sued for refusing to give oral opiates to pts unless they submitted to on going ESI’s.
The first case, whatever valid chronic pain pts there was in the practice are once again “tossed to the curb” and will most likely be shunned by other prescribers because they were a pt at that “dirty practice” that got taken down by the feds.
The second, I have not heard anything about any resolution, but it could have been settled with a confidentiality agreement and it may have just “faded away” never to be heard from again.
I have been saying for several years … that the potential solution to the problems that the chronic painers have in getting adequate pain management will be based on actions taken in our court system over the next few years.
Filed under: General Problems
So now…….the “opioid crisis” and the CDC “guideline” for opioid prescribing physicians has opened a window for FORCED fraudulent injections when the patient already knows…what works best for their pain management issues and do not wish to get an injection! I am VERY familiar with this scenario but, I am not forced to have injections to get my MEDICATION. I am a 25 year pain management patient, that has gotten along VERY well before the D “guideline” forced my doctor to lower my MEDICATION by 80 percent….in 8 weeks after using an effective dosage for 23 YEARS. DOCUMENTED on every visit AFTER double urine screening. Lost my business, can NOT have any “social” life even with my family, can not attend my church. So now a few physicians are finding ways to take advantage of the suffering patients with extorting MORE money with forced, ineffective injections! GREAT! What next? What abut the “pain management” crisis? Promises, promises ,of a “new” effective, non opioid medication…..coming soon I HOPE and PRAY that every single family that has “lost” a family member by self termination because of ineffective, insufficient, dosages of opioid MEDICATION will get JUSTICE!
It was INSANE to “set” a maximum dosage …..for one and all of MEDICATION when we already had to all but “BEG” for an effective dosage. It IS possible to be titrated to an effective dosage and STAY at that level for decades. I KNOW because I did it. I have went 23 YEARS on the same dosage BEFORE the “guideline” and NEWVER asked for “more” after titrated to an effective dosage. 90 mme is NOT an effective dosage for one and all. This entire “opioid crisis” now has lead to extortion and ineffective, not needed, injections of LORD KNOWS what compounds. I am personally terrified to EVER have another surgery now. EVERYONE….should be too! MY TWO CENTSWORTH!.
Well spoken. I have a similar story. Titrated down from a dosage that had been taken for years, without ever needing to be increased and that allowed me to have a functional quality of life. Now? Bedridden.
Finally, these intervention “hostage”docs are being knocked off the pedestals they put themselves on during the pill mill era! They demonized ALL docs that did give opioids as part of their treatments & greatly bragged how they were the best docs because they were not creating nor feeding drug addicts! Maybe not; but many had a big hand in creating chronic pain patients!
Sorry to sound so gleeful & yes there are some good intervention docs that are good & did greatly help some people; however the ones I went to, only added pain & misery, leaving me in much worse shape than I was in before them. Only to be completely dismissive when I complained that the shots are making me worse!
While I’m glad they are being punished & hope to see many more caught; the focus needs to be on not just the punishment; but what can be done to now help their victims get compassionate & ethical pain treatment! To continue to demonize & ignore them, is what led to them becoming victims of greedy docs to begin with! The truth remains that opioids can & do help far more than they harm! We just need education & common sense!