A federal jury convicted a Louisiana physician Monday for conspiring to illegally distribute over 1.8 million doses of Schedule II controlled substances, federal officials stated.
This included oxycodone and morphine, and for defrauding health care benefit programs of more than $5.4 million.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Adrian Dexter Talbot, 58, of Slidell, owned and operated Medex Clinical Consultants (Medex), located in Slidell.
Talbot is scheduled for sentencing on Oct. 23.
He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and up to 20 years for each of the other counts.
Medex was a medical clinic that accepted cash payments from individuals seeking prescriptions for Schedule II controlled substances. Talbot routinely ignored signs that individuals frequenting Medex were drug-seeking or abusing the drugs prescribed.
In 2015, Talbot took a full-time job in Pineville, Louisiana.
Although he was no longer physically present at the Slidell clinic, he pre-signed prescriptions, including for opioids and other controlled substances, to be distributed to individuals there whom he did not see or examine.
In 2016, Talbot hired another practitioner who, at Talbot’s direction, also pre-signed prescriptions to be distributed in the same manner at the Slidell clinic in exchange for cash deposited into the Medex account.
The evidence also demonstrated that Talbot falsified patient records to cover up the scheme.
With Talbot’s knowledge, individuals used their insurance benefits to fill prescriptions.
This led to fraudulent billing of health care programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana, for prescriptions issued without proper patient examinations or medical necessity.
The jury convicted Talbot of several charges: one count of conspiracy to unlawfully distribute and dispense controlled substances, four counts of unlawfully distributing and dispensing controlled substances, one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, and one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud.
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, the FBI, and the Louisiana Medicaid Fraud Control Unit investigated this case.
Trial Attorneys Sara E. Porter and Gary A. Crosby II and Assistant Chiefs Justin Woodard and Kate Payerle of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section are prosecuting the case.