Mass. Pain Management MDs Jailed for Elaborate Drug Testing Conspiracy

Case: After pleading guilty to running “one of the most dangerous pain management practices in Massachusetts,” a medical resident was sentenced to 75 months in jail, three years of supervised release and a $1.852 million restitution payment. His physician co-conspirator was also sentenced to eight years in prison for health care fraud and money laundering. The defendants routinely dispensed large quantities of powerful narcotics to addicted patients out of the now-defunct New England Pain Management Associates clinic and billed Medicare and private payors for services not performed.  Significance: The details of the scheme were particularly sordid including falsification of patient encounter notes to make it look like patients received exams of up to 40 minutes and fabrication of urine drug test results with false dates when, in fact, samples weren’t tested for up to three months after specimens were collected. The defendants also lied to investigators and provided forged documents in response to subpoenas.