Telemedicine pharmacy arrangements continue to be of significant interest to fraud enforcement. A 2018 case in which four individuals and seven companies were indicted ended in a month-long jury trial of one of the individuals, a Florida pharmacy owner. The federal jury trial in the billion-dollar telehealth pharmacy fraud scheme resulted in conviction on 22 counts of mail fraud, conspiracy to commit health care fraud and introduction of misbranded drugs into interstate commerce. Sentencing in the case is set for May of 2022. Other co-conspirators entered plea agreements along the way, pleading guilty to various charges including felony conspiracy to commit health care fraud, felony misbranding, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and fraudulent telemarketing of dietary supplements, skin creams and testosterone. Many of these are still awaiting sentencing, also expected to be scheduled sometime in 2022.
THE SCHEME
The scheme involved several individuals, compounding pharmacies and telemarketers engaged in a conspiracy to commit health care fraud, mail fraud and introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce. Peter Bolos, along with two other co-conspirators, owned and operated Synergy Pharmacy in Palm Harbor, Florida. Working with HealthRight, a telemarketer, the co-conspirators generated prescriptions for drugs such as pain creams, scar creams, and vitamins. Using the HealthRight telemarketing platform, they would call consumers and deceive them into providing their personal insurance information and accept the drugs. HealthRight then communicated the prescription requests to physicians who authorized the prescriptions without ever interacting with the patients, and paid those physicians for issuance of the prescriptions. Through this scheme, the co-conspirators were able to solicitate insurance coverage information from consumers across the county for prescription pain creams, fraudulently obtain prescriptions, mark up the prices of the drugs and bill private insurance carriers.Continue reading
