A former Mississippi pharmacist was sentenced Monday in federal court to 10 years in prison for defrauding TRICARE and private insurance companies, officials stated.
Mitchell “Chad” Barrett paid kickbacks to distributors for the referral of medically unnecessary prescriptions.
The conduct resulted in more than $180 million in fraudulent billings, including more than $50 million paid by federal health care programs.
According to court documents, Barrett, 55, now of Gulf Breeze, Florida, and formerly of Mississippi, participated in a scheme to defraud TRICARE and other health care benefit programs.
He distributed medically unnecessary compounded medications.
Barrett was licensed as a pharmacist in Mississippi and was a co-owner of various compounding pharmacies.
As part of this scheme, Barrett adjusted prescription formulas to ensure the highest reimbursement without regard to medical necessity.
He solicited recruiters to procure prescriptions for high-margin compounded medications and paid those recruiters commissions based on the percentage of reimbursements paid by pharmacy benefit managers and health care benefit programs.
This included commissions on claims reimbursed by TRICARE.
Barrett routinely and systematically waived or reduced copayments to be paid by beneficiaries and members, and utilized a purported copayment assistance program to falsely make it appear as if his pharmacy and its affiliate compounding pharmacies had been collecting copayments.
Barrett pleaded guilty on Aug. 25 to conspiracy to engage in monetary transactions in the criminally derived property.
In addition to the term of imprisonment, Barrett was ordered to pay restitution and forfeit all assets traced to his ill-gotten gains, according to officials.