Four Men and Seven Companies Indicted for Billion-Dollar Telemedicine Fraud Conspiracy

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edtn/pr/four-men-and-seven-companies-indicted-billion-dollar-telemedicine-fraud-conspiracy

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Eastern District of Tennessee

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, October 15, 2018

Four Men and Seven Companies Indicted for Billion-Dollar Telemedicine Fraud Conspiracy, Telemedicine Company and CEO Plead Guilty in Two Fraud Schemes

GREENEVILLE, Tenn.– On October 12, 2018, the District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee unsealed a 32-count indictment charging four individuals and seven companies in a $1 billion health care fraud scheme. The court also unsealed an additional two plea agreements and an information charging another individual and his company for their role in the scheme.

Andrew Assad, 33, of Palm Harbor, Florida, Peter Bolos, 41, of Lutz, Florida, and Michael Palso, 44, of Odessa, Florida, were indicted along with their compounding pharmacies, Synergy Pharmacy Services, located in Palm Harbor, and Precision Pharmacy Management, located in Clearwater. Co-conspirator Larry Everett Smith, 48, of Pinellas Park, Florida, also a pharmacy compounder, and his companies Tanith Enterprises, ULD Wholesale Group, Alpha-Omega Pharmacy, all located in Clearwater, Germaine Pharmacy located in Tampa, Florida, and Zoetic Pharmacy located in Houston, Texas, were all also named as defendants. All the defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud, mail fraud, and introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce.

On September 26, 2018, HealthRight LLC, a telemedicine company with locations in Pennsylvania and Florida, and Scott Roix, 52, of Seminole, Florida, and the CEO of HealthRight, pleaded guilty to felony conspiracy for their roles in the telemedicine health care fraud scheme in a criminal information. Roix and HealthRight LLC, also pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud in a separate scheme for fraudulently telemarketing dietary supplements, skin creams, and testosterone.

The indictment alleges that from June 1, 2015 through April 1, 2018, these individuals and companies, together with other persons and companies known to the grand jury, conspired to deceive tens of thousands of patients and more than 100 doctors located in the Eastern District of Tennessee and across the country for the purpose of defrauding private health care benefit programs such as Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee out of approximately $174,000,000. The indictment further alleges that the defendants submitted not less than $931,000,000 in fraudulent claims for payment.

According to the indictment, the defendants set up an elaborate telemedicine scheme in which HealthRight fraudulently solicited insurance coverage information and prescriptions from consumers across the country for prescription pain creams and other similar products. The indictment states that doctors approved the prescriptions without knowing that the defendants were massively marking up the prices of the invalidly prescribed drugs, which the defendants then billed to private insurance carriers.
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In addition to their roles in the health care fraud conspiracy, the Information filed against Roix and HealthRight charged each of them with conspiring to commit wire fraud as part of a scheme to use HealthRight’s telemarketing facilities to fraudulently sell millions of dollars’ worth of products such as weight loss pills, skin creams, and testosterone supplements through concocted claims of efficacy and intentionally deficient customer service designed to stall consumer complaints.
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