A rheumatologist pled guilty to charges related to his unlawful importation of foreign, non-FDA-approved, injectable medications that he falsely billed to health care benefit programs in the amount of nearly $2.3 million. He also pleaded guilty to unlawfully distributing oxycodone.
As part of his practice, he used medications administrated by injection and infusion to treat his patients. Rather than purchase FDA-approved versions of these medicines from authorized distributors, he devised a scheme to purchase much cheaper, foreign, non-FDA-approved versions. Unbeknownst to his patients, he injected or infused his patients with the non-FDA-approved medications and then billed federal health care programs, pocketing approximately $1.1 million. Read a Department of Justice press release.