South Carolina Ping 
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Posted on 03/06/2019 5:41:46 AM PST by buckalfa
GREENVILLE, S.C. (WSPA) - A group of local pain management clinics is being sued by the United States government for fraudulent claims among other issues.
In October, the FBI raided Pain Management Associates offices in Spartanburg, Easley, and Greenville. Newly unsealed court documents reveal the federal government has been investigating the practices, their parent company Oaktree Medical Centre and its owner, Dr. Daniel McCollum, for years. They're accused of improperly billing federal programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.
The investigation began after former Oaktree Medical Centre employees filed whistleblower lawsuits. Three former employees sued jointly in 2015. The fourth filed a lawsuit in 2017. The U.S. Department of Justice picked up parts of their cases to sue on behalf of U.S. taxpayers, according to court records.
Pain Management Associates serves patients in Anderson, Easley, Greenville, and Spartanburg, as well as western North Carolina.
Former employees allege in lawsuits that practices set up schemes to pad doctors' pockets and bill the federal government for benefits that weren't always necessary.
"They primarily involve the prescriptions for opioid medications and urine drug testing that's associated with those types of prescriptions," said attorney David Rothstein, who represents the plaintiffs in one of the whistleblower lawsuits.
Employment attorney John Reckenbeil told 7 News the federal government typically elects to intervene in whistleblower cases when they involve large sums of money.
"In the medical field, you're talking you know, in the tens of millions of dollars," Reckenbeil said.
The whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2017 claims the majority of patients treated by McCollum's enterprise were on Medicare or Medicaid. The suit said about 20 doctors were employed by Pain Management Associates' parent company, and each doctor had an average of about 75 visits per day, with the typical office visit billed for about $395. According to those numbers, the total billed per day would be more than $592,000.
But according to the suit filed by Rothstein, that wasn't even the medical group's biggest money maker.
"It got to the point where I think Oaktree Medical was making more money on the urine tests than it was, you know, in clinical billing for seeing patients," Rothstein said.
So why does that matter? Pain practices often drug test patients to make sure they're not selling their pills or mixing them with something dangerous. According to Rothstein's suit, Oaktree owner Dr. Daniel McCollum also owned the lab that tested patients' urine samples - LabSource. According to the suit, Oaktree's doctors' and physician assistants' compensation depended on how many health services they referred, which included sending out urine tests.
Rothstein said that's illegal.
"One of the allegations we have raised is that the doctors in the practices were incentivized to put their patients on opioid medications rather than an over the counter pain reliever like a Tylenol," Rothstein said.
LabSource declined to comment. Dr. McCollum did not return 7 News' requests for comment.
The Justice Department also did not respond to requests for comment.
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Bad circumstances for sure, but I’d be more satisfied knowing the rest of the story here.
http://whistleblowerlawyer.com/your-reward/
I’m really sick and tired of unscrupulous, unprincipled and greedy bas&^%ds who get to play God with our lives.
This is what you get when ‘accountability’ and personal integrity are alien concepts.
Thanks NEA and MSM
https://www.wate.com/news/local-news/fbi-searches-south-knoxville-pain-clinic/1825878563
Lots of variants on the same theme
...KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) - Agents with the FBI are on conducting a search at a South Knoxville pain clinic Monday morning.
Everybody's happy, right?
There are various laws encouraging "whistleblowers" to report fraud by their employers against the government. Rewards are allowed for those reporting the fraud if a conviction is obtained. The attorney site referenced in your link is just fishing for business from potential whistleblowers.
Duh. I don’t have time to cite USC; the link was convenient to make a point:
My point is that whenever there is financial motivation there is always more to the story. Disgruntled employees, whatever.
It serves the public nothing whatsoever to report on fraud without promoting the “benefits” of reporting it to prevent other fraud. This type of fraud is estimated to be in the high tens of billions; truly there are others.
I find the glaring omission a curiosity. An omission it is.
I heard a statistic this morning on the radio, which I have not confirmed, that in 2017 there were over 70,000 drug overdose related deaths in the country. What a sad commentary on our society.
local btt
Legalized dope peddling. We have three “pain clinics” in this small town and at lesst five in this county of about 45,000. There are more pain management doctors, and I use the term doctor very loosely, than there are legitimate ones who actually treat patients. One of these clinics masquerades as a “wellness clinic” complete with spa.
AMA is incapable of policing their ranks. There is just too much money involved. Any principles they have come with a price tag. 75 visits a day at $395 is nearly $30,000 a day just for that. It is obscene and should be criminal.
Regardless of who’s to blame, here are the consequences.
1. Many legitimate patients will be desperate to find another chronic pain provider. Quite a few will not.
2. Current primary care and pain management providers will become even more reluctant to prescribe opiates.
Consider this. If patients had to actually pay for their routine medical expenses, IOW if theses expenses were not covered by insurance, the issue of fraud against the government would be eliminated. The very high prices for office visits and urine screens would come down due to competition.
Sure, there would still be those clinics that over-prescribe. But I think that State medical boards can handle that. In fact, opiate prescriptions have declined 29% in WI from 2015-2018.
The major problem here is what to do with the indigent that need opiate medical management for chronic pain. I thinks sates should address those issues with providers and addiction experts.
What about dentists providing physical therapy referrals?
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