PHILADELPHIA (TIP): The Justice Department announced Sept 26 a coordinated health care fraud enforcement action across seven federal districts in the Northeastern United States, involving more than $800 million in loss and the distribution of over 3.25 million pills of opioids in “pill mill” clinics.  The takedown includes new charges against 48 defendants for their roles in submitting over $160 million in fraudulent claims, including charges against 15 doctors or medical professionals, and 24 who were charged for their roles in diverting opioids.

An Indian origin doctor is among those who were charged in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Neil K. Anand, M.D., 42, of Bensalem, Pennsylvania along with Asif Kundi, 31, Atif Mahmood Malik, 34, and Viktoriya Makarova, 33, all of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania were charged. Anand, a medical doctor, Kundi and Malik, unlicensed foreign medical school graduates, and Makarova, a nurse practitioner, were indicted on one count of health care fraud and one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.  The charges stem from the defendants’ alleged submission of false and fraudulent claims to Medicare, health plans provided by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and Independence Blue Cross (IBC).  The claims allegedly were  for “Goody Bags,” bags of medically unnecessary prescription medications that were dispensed by non-pharmacy dispensing sites owned by Anand. In total, Medicare, OPM and IBC allegedly paid over $4 million for the Goody Bags.  Patients were allegedly required to take the Goody Bags in order to receive prescriptions for controlled substances. Malik and Kundi allegedly wrote prescriptions for controlled substances using blank prescriptions that were pre-signed by Anand or Makarova.  Anand and Makarova allegedly prescribed over 10,000 prescriptions for Schedule II controlled substances, of which over 7,000 were for oxycodone totaling over 634,000 oxycodone tablets.

 This is one of the largest health care fraud schemes ever investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (HHS-OIG) and prosecuted by the Department of Justice, which previously resulted in charges against 21 other defendants.