Here in Texas, we are used to hearing breathless spiels about one or another ointment that will work miracles when you rub it on your skin. In the old days, we used to hear them from sweet-talking, sweet-smelling Mary Kay ladies whose faces, upon close inspection, did look surprisingly smooth despite their advanced age, so our mothers paid for the overpriced lotions and funded the Mary Kay ladies’ pink Cadillacs and expensive skincare regimens.
More recently, we tend to hear them from tough-talking bros who, if memory serves us, were quite often wimpy targets of ridicule in school. The bros promise us that a diet of protein shakes and plain chicken breast is not enough to give us the toned physique the bros who sound like they have something to prove have achieved; we must also buy this skin cream that the bros are selling us on a multilevel marketing business model as pyramid-shaped as the Mary Kay business model that sapped our mothers’ savings, and never mind about the price tag. All of this is perfectly legal; the sweet ladies and scary bros assure us, and they are right. Multilevel marketing businesses are legal, even when they involve useless and overpriced skin creams. Billing health insurance companies for medically unnecessary treatments, including but not limited to topical medications, is against the law, though.
If you are under investigation for making questionable or allegedly fraudulent health insurance claims, contact a Texas white-collar crime lawyer.
Physician and Two Pharmacists Get Criminal Charges for Overcharging Workers’ Comp for Topical Medications
In November 2023, two pharmacists and a dermatologist in the Dallas area received criminal charges for healthcare fraud and money laundering conspiracy. The physician would prescribe medically unnecessary skin creams to workers’ compensation patients and send the prescriptions to either of the two pharmacies. The pharmacists claimed to mix the creams themselves, but according to the criminal complaint, the people who mixed the ointments were young workers, described in the complaint as “teenagers” who had no training as pharmacy technicians and who got paid a low wage. Meanwhile, the pharmacists would bill the workers’ comp insurance companies thousands of dollars per tube of ointment. Some of the patients told police that the skin creams did nothing, while others said that they caused irritation.
So far, one of the pharmacists has pleaded guilty to the charges. In early 2025, he received a prison sentence, and the court ordered him to forfeit hundreds of millions of dollars of the proceeds of the healthcare fraud operation. The cases against the other pharmacist and the physician are still pending. In conspiracy cases like these, it is possible for one defendant to be acquitted, even if another one pleads guilty.
Contact the Law Office of Patrick J. McLain, PLLC, About Criminal Defense Cases
A Dallas criminal defense lawyer can help you fight your charges if you are a healthcare provider facing criminal charges for allegedly filing fraudulent health insurance claims. Contact the Law Office of Patrick J. McLain, PLLC, in Dallas, Texas, to discuss your case.