04/17/2023    

PODIATRIST AND THE LAW

TX Podiatrist Convicted for $8.5M Compounding Fraud Scheme

 

A federal jury convicted two Texas men today for their role in a scheme to fraudulently bill TRICARE – the healthcare program for U.S. service members and their families – for compounded creams that were medically unnecessary and procured through kickbacks and bribes. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Brian Carpenter was a podiatrist who signed prescriptions for compounded pain and scar creams for TRICARE beneficiaries to whom he never spoke and whom he never examined or treated. Jerry Lee Hawrylak, a pharmacist, recruited Carpenter to sign the prescriptions and recruited TRICARE beneficiaries to accept the medically unnecessary creams.

 

Source: United States Department of Justice [4/14/23]