Two physicians from Cleveland, Tenn., have admitted to cheating the military’s health care program, TRICARE, out of more than $65 million by writing thousands of expensive, unnecessary prescriptions to patients they never examined.
In a San Diego federal court last week, Dr. Carl Lindblad and Dr. Susan Vergot pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud for their operations at Choice MD, a walk-in clinic on Candies Creek Ridge Road.
The two doctors worked with a team of co-conspirators to obtain patient information from TRICARE-enrolled Marines and their families – mostly from the San Diego area – and write prescriptions for costly, custom-made drugs to those individuals, according to a news release from the Southern California U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The case is one of several across the country concerning TRICARE and specialty drugs known as compounded medications, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, which first reported on the investigation.
When a physician determines an existing drug won’t work for a particular patient, such as in the case of an allergy or special dosage, a pharmacist can compound a medication to meet the individual’s medical needs.