Man sentenced in insurance fraud

A former Fort Smith medical sales representative was sentenced Friday to 15 months in federal prison for his role in a multimillion-dollar conspiracy to defraud Tricare, the health insurer for the U.S. military.

Brian Means pleaded guilty Nov. 28 to a charge of conspiring to violate the federal anti-kickback statute. He admitted he was one of several people, known as patient recruiters, who between December 2014 and July 2015 supplied names of Tricare beneficiaries. Phony prescriptions for expensive compounded medications were filled in the beneficiaries' names at a Mississippi compounding pharmacy.

A woman who was a medical assistant in Little Rock created prescriptions in those names, forging the signature of a Little Rock doctor for whom she worked. Brad Duke, a medical sales representative in Little Rock who prosecutors said was the ringleader of the Arkansas scheme, then submitted the prescriptions to the pharmacy, which was paid by the insurance company. The pharmacy paid Duke large commissions and he, in turn, paid others below him in the scheme, prosecutors have said.

The woman -- Charlotte Leija, 38, of Conway -- and Duke, 43, of Little Rock are among those who have pleaded guilty. Leija was sentenced last month to 18 months in prison and was ordered to forfeit more than $253,000 that she profited from the scheme. She admitted authorizing the maximum number of refills for each phony prescription.

Read more: https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2019/may/13/man-sentenced-in-insurance-fraud-201905/