Pharmaceuticals

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey recently announced a $750,000 settlement with Sentynl Therapeutics Inc., a California-based specialty pharmaceutical company. The settlement resolved allegations that Sentynl improperly provided kickbacks to a physician to induce prescriptions of its opioid products in violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS).

The Government alleged that

On September 14, Rivkin Radler’s Jeff Kaiser will participate on a panel at Practising Law Institute’s Life Sciences 2023: Navigating Legal Challenges in Drug and Device Industries program in New York City.

Held at PLI’s New York Conference Center at 1177 Sixth Avenue, the program will cover the explosive growth of digital health and the

New York State Attorney General Letitia James recently announced that the owner and manager of Santiago Pharmacy in Flushing, Queens, were indicted for paying kickbacks to Medicaid recipients in exchange for filling their HIV prescriptions at the pharmacy.

Juan Poveda, the owner, and Javier Burbano, the pharmacy manager, were charged with grand larceny, health care

Here’s a selection of recent healthcare frauds from New Jersey. On April 17, John Sher of Margate was sentenced to 37 months in prison and ordered to pay $2.77 million in restitution and $327,987 in forfeiture for defrauding New Jersey state and local health benefits programs and other insurers. Sher and a co-conspirator recruited state

Rivkin Radler’s Michael Sirignano authored an article for the March 2 issue of the New York Law Journal entitled “Healthcare Fraud Tops DOJ’s Annual False Claims Act Report – Again!” The article discussed a report issued by the U.S. Department of Justice detailing the settlements and judgments it obtained under the federal False

On February 17, Daniel Russo, a Long Island resident, pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to multiple charges in connection with illegally distributing oxycodone. Russo faces decades in federal prison when he is sentenced.

Russo owned and operated Russo’s Pharmacy in Far Rockaway, Queens. From 2011 to 2014, he filled thousands of fraudulent prescriptions

For those who just can’t get enough fraud, here are some of the “leftovers” from this edition of Fraud Week that your editor thought noteworthy.

Read about a pharmacy biller’s fake copay assistance scheme:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/woman-convicted-billing-claims-part-65-million-pharmaceutical-coupon-fraud

Genetic testing kickback schemes

In TX: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/laboratory-owners-and-executives-charged-health-care-kickback-scheme

In FL: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ocenture-llc-and-carelumina-llc-settle-allegations-false-claims-unnecessary-genetic-testing

And here’s a big one in GA: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/lab-owner-convicted-463-million-genetic-testing-scheme-defraud-medicare

DME kickback

In the next installment of Rivkin Radler’s Healthcare Compliance Lunch & Learn series, Rivkin Radler’s Geoffrey Kaiser and Jeffrey Ehrhardt will present “A Survey of OIG’s 2022 Advisory Opinions: What They Could Mean for Your Organization.” Jeff and Jeff will:

  • Discuss select Advisory Opinions from last year on a variety of topics, including use of

On November 9, the Pharmaceutical Coalition for Patient Access (PCPA) filed an action against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) after HHS’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) determined that a proposed patient assistance model posed more than a minimal risk of fraud, waste, and abuse under the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS). PCPA

A Suffolk County, New York court held on November 16 that White’s Apothecary in East Hampton was not negligent when it filled a physician’s opioid and benzodiazepine prescriptions as ordered. The plaintiff had claimed that the pharmacy should be liable for filling “excessive and dangerous doses” of oxycodone and Carisoprodol, a muscle relaxant, despite a