The Justice Department issued the following statement.
Two Charged in Multi-Million Dollar Compounding Pharmacy Fraud Scheme
Jason May, 40, of Lamar County, Mississippi, and Gerald Jay Schaar, 46, of Biloxi, Mississippi, have each been charged by Criminal Information for their roles in a multi-million dollar compounding pharmacy health care fraud conspiracy, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Harold Brittain, FBI Special Agent in Charge Christopher Freeze, IRS- Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge Jerome R. McDuffie, and John F. Khin, Special Agent in Charge, Defense Criminal Investigative Service Southeast Field Office.
The charges were brought as a result of the largest ever national health care fraud enforcement action by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, involving 412 charged defendants in 41 federal districts across the country, targeting schemes which involved billing Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE (a health insurance program for members and veterans of the armed forces and their families) for medically unnecessary prescription drugs and compounded medications that often were never even purchased and/or distributed to beneficiaries.
May is charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud and money laundering in connection with his role as co-owner and pharmacist in charge of Advantage Pharmacy, which received approximately $192 million in reimbursements from TRICARE and other health care benefit programs for compound topical creams. According to the Criminal Information, May selected formulas for the compound creams based on reimbursement rates as opposed to medical efficacy. In order to facilitate the scheme to defraud, May and Advantage Pharmacy either did not collect patient copayments for the compound topical creams or paid copayments on behalf of beneficiaries. As a co-owner of Advantage Pharmacy, May received a portion of the reimbursements associated with the fraudulently obtained compound creams and transferred certain of those proceeds from the fraud – in transactions greater
than $10,000 - into a money market account held in his name.
Schaar is charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud for his role in a fraudulent scheme in which he, acting as a marketer for a pharmacy located in Lamar County, solicited physicians and other medical professionals to write prescriptions without seeing patients for compound topical creams dispensed by the pharmacy. According to the Criminal Information, Schaar, together with others, later falsified patient records to make it seem as though medical professionals had examined the patients who received prescriptions for the compound creams. In total, the pharmacy received $2.3 million in reimbursements for the prescriptions solicited by Schaar.
Jason May and Gerald Jay Schaar are both scheduled to enter guilty pleas before U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett on July 25, 2017, at 1:30 p.m.
This case is being prosecuted by Department of Justice trial attorneys Dustin Davis and Katherine Payerle and Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Helen Wall. The case is being investigated by the FBI, IRS-Criminal Investigation, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, and other government agencies.
Kingfish note: Read the allegations posted below. Vewwwy intewesting.
12 comments:
It's never good when the US is the plaintiff and you're the defendant.
Does Kingfish know the names of the doctors that wrote the prescriptions?
Feds didn't release those names.
'Does Kingfish know the names of the doctors that wrote the prescriptions?'
Here's a clue. Look toward nursing homes where the "staff physician' rarely if ever sees the residents and all are medicare and/or medicaid and/or Tri-care For Life.
And that same physician is part-owner of the Hospice that eventually gets the resident/patient referrals from that nursing home.
Another from Jackson will be charged soon. 12,000 sf house in Hinds county.....
One of the many reasons Medicare expenditures are increasing. They rarely get caught unless one of the scammers feels like he didn't get his cut and blows the whistle. If you are on Medicare always review your bills and ask for an explanation if something doesn't look correct.
'Amount you may be required to pay' is as far as anybody looks... medicare or not. And all in the system know that.
Pain creme is what this is all about.......
There were several compounding pharmacies in the Jackson area that were raided by the feds a year or so ago. One at the Jackson Medical Mall and another over off 220 behind the Farm Bureau building. Were these two guys affiliated with them?
With Jason May almost assuredly singing like a canary after cutting a deal to save himself, it's just a matter of time before the "real" criminals who actually devised this scheme are brought to justice. I imagine there are several guys debating at this very moment whether they should cut a deal or just hang tight and hope they don't get a call or worse yet, a knock on the door from the feds.
The stress of stealing 400 million from the military & then getting caught 2 1/2 years later has to be off the charts
Only two eh? There are more. But they are probably living abroad quite lavishly now.
Definitely a complex scam. Many pharmacists involved as well as opportunists representing to physicians a way to make extra money.
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