2021 Pharmacy Enforcement Actions in Full Swing

By: Michael Silverman

The new year has brought with it no lull in pharmacy fraud crackdowns and enforcement actions, with allegations related to over one billion dollars in false claims.

Here’s a breakdown of the latest:

Mississippi Man Sentenced to 18 Years in Prison and $287,659,569 in Restitution

This individual spearheaded a scheme involving kickbacks to marketers and prescribers to defraud TRICARE and other healthcare programs by submitting claims for unnecessary compounded medications, which also involved routine waiver of patient financial responsibility. Continue reading

The Effect of being excluded from Participation in Federal Healthcare Programs

blacklist

The Government recently clarified six areas related the effect of exclusion from participation in Federal Healthcare Programs.

  1. Switching professions during a period of exclusion does not change the exclusion and payment prohibitions.
  2. You can accept a referral from an excluded provider as long as the excluded provider does not provide any services to the referred patient.
  3. Being excluded along with the payment prohibitions extends beyond just direct patient care.
  4. If you are excluded you cannot provide either administrative or management services to non excluded provider.
  5. Excluded providers cannot even provide volunteer services, and
  6. Excluded providers can work for non excluded providers as long as the services they provide are furnished to non-federal healthcare program patients.

Providers need to screen every professional, employee and contractor they do business with to insure they are not on the Exclusion list. It is always best to check the list of Excluded Individuals/Entities (LEIE) for anybody you work with.