The CEO of the Tri-County Wellness Group of medical providers in Michigan and Ohio, Mashiyat Rashid, was sentenced by the Department of Justice for his leadership in a brow-raising $150 million case last month. According to a DOJ press release Rashid was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison, ordered to pay $50 million and must turn over a laundry list of assets paid for with money made from the far-reaching health care fraud and money laundering scheme which includes “over $11.5 million, commercial real estate, residential real estate, and a Detroit Pistons season ticket membership.”
During a span of eight years at the Tri-County Wellness Group, Rashid was found guilty of ordering physicians to give patients unnecessary back injections in exchange for prescriptions of over 6.6 million doses of medically unnecessary opioids. The opioid crisis has continued to ravage many American cities and is not being taken lightly in federal courts. In fact, 21 other defendants including Joseph Betro and Mohammed Zahoor, and Tariq Omar from the Tri-County Wellness Group are being prosecuted for their involvement in the nearly decade-long scheme, part of a nation-wide problem that is estimated to cost Medicare a total of $19 billion dollars to date.
This is in addition to the dangerous repercussions to patient’s wellbeing. Patients of the Tri-County Wellness Group testified to being forced to undergo often painful and unnecessary back injections in exchange for prescriptions for Oxycodone 30 mg that could then be billed back to Medicare and reimbursed to the clinic’s pockets. The court found that many of Rashid’s patients had been specifically targeted due to previous history of opioid addiction or for their lack of resources; many were recruited from nearby homeless shelters and soup kitchens.
Given the severe disregard for human life and substantial monetary toll this case had on the public, the case was investigated by IRS Criminal Investigations, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General and the FBI. If your clinic or employer is being investigated for health care fraud, speak with our experienced attorney at Padula Law to establish a mitigation and defense strategy.
